Exclusive | Desperately seeking NYC cops: NYPD applicants have plummeted as force tries to hire 1,600 officers

The number of candidates taking the test to join the NYPD has plunged by more than half in the past eight years, The Post has learned.

Prospective members of New York’s Finest went from 18,000 in 2017 to just 8,000 this year — a 55% decline, according to data from the Police Benevolent Association, the city’s largest police union. 

“The biggest problem is that cops are telling their friends and family not to bother with this job, even as a stepping stone, because it’s not worth it,” a Brooklyn cop with more than a dozen years on the job told The Post.

“You’ll be worked to the bone, attacked by perps and politicians and hammered with nonsense complaints and ticky-tack discipline.”

One longtime NYPD officer said his son plans to join the Suffolk County Police Department this year despite a lower starting salary rather than follow in his father’s footsteps in NYC.

“You’re not forced to work every New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July,” the dad said. “You don’t have to worry about getting stabbed, shot and then sued all the time.”

The Suffolk County department starts cops at $43,000 annually but pay increases to $158,828 after 11 and half years.

New York City cops start at $53,790.

One Brooklyn cop who retired recently said he advises young people against joining the department.

“I tell them if you can find another agency that’s willing to take you I would go,” the 45-year-old said. “I would run for the hills if you can.”

Mayor Adams pledged in November to bring on 1,600 new cops in 2025 — but the city has been having trouble finding viable candidates, a union spokesman said.

Even if the city gets to 800 Academy cadets — candidates who pass the test and meet all the other mental and physical benchmarks — by its Jan. 29 target, the candidate pool will be shallow as it comes time to hire the second class of 800 in April, the union said.

The general rule is that one out of every eight candidates pass the test and meet all the other criteria. So to fill 1,600 academy slots, a pool of almost 13,000 candidates is needed.

Faced with a shrinking pool of prospects, the NYPD has taken the unusual step of reaching out to candidates who took the test as far back as seven years ago, said a source involved in the process. 

Making matters worse, the department headcount is the lowest it has been in more than three decades.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, cited “stupid laws” that the City Council has passed that hamstring cops.

“A lot of my students don’t want to be cops anymore,” Giacalone said. “The whole class used to want to be cops.”

In 2020, the leftist-dominated Council passed six bills critics say kills morale and reduces police effectiveness, including the chokehold ban, which makes it illegal for police to put pressure on a person’s neck or diaphragm, and the “How Many Stops Act,” which requires police officers to fill out paperwork for every encounter.

State bail reform has also made the job less attractive as cops see the same perps — some of them migrants who cops are not permitted to turn over to ICE — committing crimes and getting right back out on the street, police sources said.

PBA President Patrick Hendry wants the city to find a balance between the laws and the pay to make the job more attractive.

“Right now, potential recruits know that a career in the NYPD means enduring more work, more risk, more pressure and more scrutiny, in exchange for fewer benefits and lower pay than almost any other policing job,” he said.

“Our city needs to balance the scales — by both reducing the burdens on cops and boosting compensation — in order to compete for the top recruits.”