Chicago Police Dept. should hire more civilians to ease officer staffing needs, study finds
CHICAGO - The Chicago Police Department should hire hundreds more civilians to take over some duties of sworn officers and ease staffing pressures, according to a summary of a long-awaited report.
For years, the department has faced staffing shortages, which have led to officers working long hours, having their planned time off canceled, and more spending on overtime for the city that is facing perpetual budget challenges.
‘Civilianization’ of CPD work
What we know:
The "Workforce Allocation Study," conducted by the Matrix Consulting Group, found that there were "substantial opportunities" to shift about 600 positions from being filled by officers to civilian staffers.
The researchers found that CPD has a significantly smaller ratio of civilians to officers in its workforce than departments in other large cities.
They emphasized that their strategy is not meant to decrease overall staffing. Rather, the "civilianization" of jobs would help officers focus on tasks "where police authority and training are most needed," according to the summary of the study.
Overall, CPD faces "real and uneven" staffing pressures, particularly among its patrol operations and supervision staff. Those staffing pressures differ across various parts of the city where officers are assigned.
The summary's conclusion said in part, "A core theme throughout the report is the need to better align sworn expertise with work that truly requires it, while expanding the Department’s civilian workforce in areas where technical skill, continuity, and specialization are critical. The civilianization recommendations, combined with targeted increases in sworn staffing and supervision, offer a pathway to rebalance resources in a manner that strengthens operational effectiveness while supporting fiscal sustainability."
More cops for patrols, investigations
By the numbers:
The study also said the department would need to hire for about 400 more civilian positions and around 120 more sworn officer roles.
As of this month, CPD employs about 12,100 workers, more than 11,000 of whom are sworn officers, according to city data.
But Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget plan for 2026 called for funding more than 13,200 full-time positions in CPD. With only around 90% of budgeted positions filled over the past few years, that’s led to underspending on budgeted salaries and significant overspending on overtime costs in recent years, according to an analysis by the independent Civic Federation.
The growing costs of running an understaffed CPD have been a significant contributor to the city's ongoing fiscal woes, which led to a tense budget negotiation last year on how to close a $1.1 billion budget gap.
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The study also pointed out that hiring more civilians could free up officers to do more work that is core to policing.
Having officers available for patrol and other duties would help the department pursue its goal of community policing, the report said. Those duties include patrolling, which would help officers "engage with community members beyond responding to calls for service," according to the report.
Another benefit would be having more sworn officers for investigative work. Johnson came into office promising to shift more officers toward detective work to improve the department’s clearance rate, which measures how many investigations result in an arrest or conviction.
The Bureau of Detectives had a clearance rate of 71% for homicide cases in 2025, well above even pre-pandemic levels when rates were in the 30% to 50% range.