Atlantic City struggles to recruit seasonal officers to support tourism

👮‍♂️ Atlantic City police are struggling to hire part-time cops for the summer season

👮‍♂️ They have funding to hire 70 Class 2 officers

👮‍♂️ Many don't stay in the part-time position for very long

ATLANTIC CITY — Unlike other Jersey Shore towns, Atlantic City has tourists who visit year-round. In previous years, the Atlantic City Police Department has hired special law enforcement officers, called Class 2 officers, who normally work full-time for six months, and part-time for six months.

In the winter, their hours get cut back, but they are kept on throughout the year to deal with the heavy tourist population that the city experiences.

The Class 2 law enforcement officer position has been very successful in the past, said Atlantic City Police Chief James Sarkos.

But recently, there are not as many young men and women who are interested in a career in law enforcement. Those who are interested in a career can find full-time jobs rather easily, he said.

“So, we don’t see a huge candidate pool for Class 2 law enforcement officers positions, and when we do find those who are interested in that position, a lot of time they don’t stay for long because they’ll get hired full-time rather quickly,” Sarkos said.

The Atlantic City Police Department has funding from the city budget to hire 70 part-time Class 2 law enforcement officers, but so far the department only has five positions filled, all of them retired police officers, Sarkos said.

“What we’ve done previously is we’ve taken all of our Class 2s and made them full-time to fill in vacancies in our full-time ranks, but what we see is when we put out requests for applicants, we get a lot more people who apply for the full-time positions, and not as many for the Class 2s,” Sarkos said.

The suggestion now is to budget for more full-time officers to replace the Class 2s. If this doesn’t happen, the department will continue to hire Class 2s. But Sarkos reiterated that since they don’t stay for long, it would be more beneficial to just hire full-time cops.

The good news is that crime is down 8% in Atlantic City compared to last year, Sarkos said.

However, in a tourist town, he said people like to see police officers patrolling the boardwalk and other touristy parts of the shore town. Traditionally, Atlantic City has done this with Class 2 officers.

“During this past summer when we didn’t have Class 2 officers, we utilized the money that was budgeted for Class 2 officers to pay for officers on overtime to have additional bodies on the boardwalk,” Sarkos said.

They’ll continue to do that again this summer if necessary, but he said a more viable solution would be to have more full-time officers.

Anyone who is interested in becoming a Class 2 police officer or a full-time police officer in Atlantic City can apply on their website. Just click on careers.

Retired police officers are urged to apply for Class 2 law enforcement officer positions. That’s a great option, according to Sarkos, because they don’t have to return to the police academy for training. They just cannot have been gone for more than three years, he said.

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