The staffing story every city hears is the half-full academy class. The story that actually empties a roster is quieter: experienced officers resigning or retiring early, year after year, faster than any recruiting campaign can backfill. Framed as numbers instead of anecdotes, the picture flips - agencies do not primarily have a hiring problem, they have a leaving problem, and pouring money into the top of a leaking funnel is the most expensive way to stay the same size.
This infographic lays the two flows side by side: what comes in through recruitment and what drains out through attrition. The uncomfortable takeaway is that signing bonuses only address the intake pipe. The leak runs on morale - officers who feel invisible, whose thousands of good encounters generate no record while their rare complaints follow them forever. That is a fixable condition, and it costs less than one bonus cycle. Use the graphic in a council staffing briefing, a budget workshop, or a command retreat where "recruit harder" needs a counterweight.
For the retention side of the equation, start with Officer Recognition and Retention.
