While there are currently about 13,500 vacancies, the ministry aims to keep unfilled positions at 3–4%—or roughly 3,000 to 4,000—out of the 110,000 total authorized positions.
Mroczek described the past year as “transformative” in terms of police staffing.
“We accepted more than 6,400 new officers, and fewer than 6,000 left the service, giving us a net gain of 538,” he told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). He noted that 2023 was a record year for departures with nearly 10,000 officers leaving, leading to what he called a “radical drop” in force numbers.
Mroczek said he hopes to remedy the gap within two to three years, expecting fewer exits this year. “January and February usually see the highest departures, based on paperwork filed at the end of the previous year. In November and December 2024, about 2,000 requests to leave were submitted—half the number seen in 2023,” he explained.
If the force can maintain the 2024 recruitment level of around 7,000, he added, plans to expand police ranks will remain “realistic.”
Asked whether returning officers benefited from new regulations that ease re-entry into service, Mroczek said most recruits are first-timers, but a few hundred are returning personnel. “We’ll be able to assess the full impact of the relaxed rules in 2025,” he said.
Rising interest in the police
According to Mroczek, 22,000 applicants expressed interest in joining the police last year, compared with 16,000 the year before. He attributes the surge to improved working conditions, including wage hikes.
“We have removed politics from the force, implemented a 20% pay increase, and aligned entry-level police pay with that of a private in the armed forces,” he said.
(jh)
Source: PAP