Despite pay raises of $11,000 for state law enforcement officers during the past two years, recruitment and retention of those officers remains difficult. Despite the raises, Georgia is 36th in the nation in trooper salaries and 50th in number of troopers per capita.
A state house working group heard from Lt. Colonel Bill Hitchens, the deputy commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety who told legislators many factors across the country have made the task more difficult in the last several years, including the public demonization of police after the highly publicized deaths of Black citizens at the hands of white law enforcement officers, moves by some cities to defund the police, and calls for end to “qualified immunity” for police officers.
The house committee was formed earlier this year to develop strategies to attract and retain more law enforcement officers
