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Can RPD keep up with the ongoing population boom?
Dozens of arrests, nine people shot—there’s no doubt the Fourth of July rocked Raleigh. Clearly, public safety is one of the city’s biggest growth challenges—and as the population continues to surge, the pressure on an already understaffed police force is only growing.
Raleigh Police Department isn’t keeping up—full stop. Transplants, newborns and grads prowling the job market are creating a Raleigh population tidal wave. Officially topping 500,000 people, the city is poised to swell by ~10,000 a year over the next 25 years—aka a quarter-million new people by 2050.
Yet RPD has less officers than it did 25 years ago—even as Raleigh’s population has jumped almost a quarter million residents, and emergency response times have nearly doubled.
While the city authorized 23 new positions in the recently passed budget—with plans to add 46 more in the next two years—the department currently sits with 93 vacancies. A fully staffed RPD would have 818 officers—still a lean force for a city Raleigh’s size. By contrast, Miami, with a population just shy of 500,000, has 1,100 sworn officers of its 1,300+ total positions—around 500 more than Raleigh.
In her exit interview, former police chief Stella Patterson told RM a city of this size should have 1,000 officers—bare minimum—and that she wouldn’t have taken the chief position if she’d known the extent of the vacancies. So why can’t Raleigh reach full force?
According to current RPD Chief Rico Boyce, it’s not a recruiting problem—it’s a retention problem. In recent years, the police academy has produced anywhere from 27 to 40+ new officers per graduating class. The problem? We train them, but we can’t keep them.
Perhaps ironically, Raleigh is home to the county’s only police academy, but many newly trained officers are lured to neighboring towns for higher salaries, perks and a less dangerous job. Out of Raleigh, Cary, Wake Forest, Garner and Apex, the Cap City has the lowest officer starting salary.
“Other chiefs have told me, ‘Chief, I don’t need an academy, I’m just going to wait until you have a class and get the officers I need for my jurisdiction,” Boyce said at a recent Citizens for a Safe and Secure Raleigh meeting. The numbers bear that out: In 2025, 67 officers departed for neighboring departments, and from January through April, another 27 followed.
“Last year, RPD got an 11% raise,” RPD Foundation Chair Brenda Gibson tells RM. “This year, they only got 3%. The annual raises mean a lot to people.” In this economy, competitive starting pay—and perks such as take-home cars for new officers or those living outside of city limits—are essential in helping Raleigh compete to keep them.
Bottom line: The city’s growth isn’t going to slow, and Raleigh needs a police force proportional to the population. The question is whether Raleigh can make staying here as attractive to its police officers as it is to everyone else.
Population & Proportion
| Year | Population | Sworn Officers |
| 2006 | 353,604 | 728 |
| 2012 | 442,386 | 762 |
| 2016 | 459,796 | 750 |
| Today | 506,306 | 726 (93 vacancies) |
| City | Newbies Base pay | Base pay in 2021 |
| Raleigh | $61,417 | $41,068 |
| Cary | $65,104 | $51,000 |
| Wake Forest | $65,093 | $50,243 |
| Garner | $62,418 | n/a |
| Apex | $62,524 | n/a |
All data as of press time
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