Police agencies are facing tough times.

Gone are the days when officers were respected by all and were able to interact freely with community members.

And while a recent rash of police shootings and bad publicity about how officers are handling themselves in the streets has filled national headlines repeatedly throughout the last year, local law enforcement agencies are facing an even bigger crisis: A shortage of qualified applicants willing to don the badge.

All across Michigan, as well as in many parts of the country, police agencies are finding it increasingly more difficult to fill positions.

Last summer, Michigan had approximately 4,000 law enforcement jobs open, which means many departments will not be able to fill their duty rosters as fewer and fewer men and women and going into the field.

In larger cities like Detroit, Lansing or Grand Rapids, a job opening would attract hundreds of qualified applicants in past years. Now, less than 100 potential officers apply for those jobs.

This problem is only exacerbated for departments in smaller communities, such as those in Cass County.

Dowagiac Director of Public Safety Steven Grinnewald has witnessed this issue grow over the last two years, he said. The last time the department posted a job opening for a full-time position, it received around a dozen applications, while in the past similar postings would draw interest to 50 to 60 candidates, Grinnewald said.

“Out of those applications we do receive, we are finding a lot of problems with the individuals who sent them,” Grinnewald said. “There are just not a lot of qualified candidates out there right now.”

Oftentimes candidates either fail to make it past interviews with department officials or have questionable elements in the past uncovered in a background check, Grinnewald said.

“The last thing we want to do is to put someone out on the streets who will treat the public poorly,” the chief said.

Even among the qualified candidates, many are from outside the Cass County area, where Grinnewald would prefer to hire from due to the fact these candidates would be more familiar with the region, he said.

Cass County Sheriff Richard Behnke has also noticed this trend within the sheriff’s office, he said.

“When I first started we had people from Dowagiac, Cass and Edwardsburg,” Behnke said. “Now it is rare to find somebody local to apply. When we do, we take a serious look at them because we think they are the best candidate because they are local.”

Local police leaders believe a number of factors are causing this shortage of qualified candidates — one of the largest being the fact that larger police departments, such as those in Kalamazoo, Lansing and Grand Rapids, are attracting the limited pool of recent police academy graduates to their ranks, leaving little for smaller departments.

“It is difficult for us to compete with larger departments that have so many different divisions and opportunities,” Grinnewald said. “We have to find people who are interested in serving in a small town, where things are a lot slower.”

Grinnewald also believes that less and less people are attracted to public work in general due to the reduction of insurance and retirement benefits in recent years.

While less of an issue among local departments, police leaders also feel that the public backlash against police departments, fueled by a number of racially charged shootings in recent years, is causing some to reconsider their interest in working in public safety.

“The problem is that every negative incident is magnified by social media,” Behnke said. “It becomes a challenge to keep that positive influence. But if you did a poll in Cass County of all its residents, I would say that more than 75 percent have a positive relationship or image of the sheriff’s office here.”

To combat these issues, Grinnewald said he and his department are considering increasing outreach to high school students.

Behnke himself became interested in law enforcement while still attending Dowagiac Union High School.

“We used to have a great program in the Dowagiac schools, as an example,” he said. “Where they would go to the schools and through the law programs would give presentations on law enforcement careers. Those programs have gone by the wayside. Another great tool was the driver’s education programs where we would go and do presentations. That contact with kids was great, but those programs have gone away because schools no longer teach driver’s ed.”

Establishing contacts at an early age remains important to create an interest in law enforcement careers. The Cass County Sheriff’s Office tries to be active with the SMC criminal justice program in order to open up that line of communication.

But unfortunately, many of those students are seeking other opportunities in criminal justice.

“What I am noticing at the college is that most of the students there are interested in probation/parole jobs or they want to be lab techs,” he said. “Something other than a road officer or a corrections officer. That is where there are needs are right now. So it is a challenge to try and find those people.”

However, by reaching out to younger students, local leaders could reach future recruits and begin encouraging them to one day join their ranks before their futures are more set in stone.

At the moment, the candidate shortage has not become a major determent to the operations of the Dowagiac force, Grinnewald said.

With 14 officers currently serving on the force, the Dowagiac Police Department has a healthy full-time roster, Grinnewald said. However, they currently only have a single part-time officer, and would like to bump that pool up to at least three or four more people, he said.

As the department usually bumps up their part-time officers whenever a full-time one retires, the shortage could become a larger issue, as there are four or five officers who are eligible for retirement within the next five years, Grinnewald said.

Before that becomes a problem, Grinnewald said his department will keep its nose to the ground and try to overcome the current crisis.

“We just need to focus on recruitment, and continuing to build our reputation as a place officers will want to work for,” he said. “If we do that, hopefully more candidates will begin to seek us out.”