Marymargaret Bradbury thinks about it all the time.

Where would she be if she hadn’t found the Lansing Police Department’s Explorer’s Post?

She started the youth program an immature 14-year-old. Now a 20-year-old cadet aiming to enter the police academy in less than a year, Bradbury knows things could have gone far differently.

“I went from immature to the person I never knew I could be,” Bradbury said. “I’m the black sheep of my family, the only one that’s gone into law enforcement. I didn’t get a lot of support or help. The Explorer Post helped me.”

Bradbury is the perfect candidate for the Explorer program, which is designed to introduce teenagers, ages 14 to 20, to policing. But it does so much more than that, LPD Lt. Matthew Kreft said.

It lets LPD, as well as the two dozen other Explorer Posts in Michigan, scope out potential talent and lead teenagers to a career path they might not have thought possible, Kreft said.

And at a time when most police departments are struggling to recruit enough officers to keep their force fully staffed, having that talent pipeline is particularly important, he said.

“They’re not lining up, so we’re growing our own,” Kreft said. “We’re helping to train our future co-workers, and we’re giving a heck of an opportunity to youth.”

A national, 'looming' crisis

When Kreft applied to LPD in 2000 he had to compete with 300 or 400 other applicants to get his job. Nineteen years later, there’s nowhere near that amount of competition.

Lansing Police Chief Mike Yankowski said they often gets fewer than 50 applications for open positions. He’s dedicated massive time and resources to recruiting, making it one of the department’s top priorities.

It’s hard, however, when the desire to serve simply isn’t there anymore. And the high risk, low pay and negative public perceptions certainly don’t help either.

“We’re all fishing in the same pond for officers,” Kreft said. “It’s not just Michigan having the problem. It’s a national, almost a looming crisis.”

With 208 officers, LPD isn’t currently short-staffed, but Yankowski remembers what it was like to be short 10 or more officers. He doesn’t want to go back there.

“At one point we were down 26,” he said. “That’s an entire platoon for us. That’s the night shift. It puts a strain on everyone.”

Since Yankowski became chief in 2013, he has hired 123 officers.

But as much as he and Kreft talk about the youth being the future of the department, having so many young officers can still be concerning at times, Yankowski said. It generally takes a new officer three years to get comfortable handling anything they run into on the job.

At LPD, 60% of road patrol officers have less than three years of experience. 70% have less than six years of experience.

That’s why both Yankowski and Kreft see LPD’s Explorer’s Post as a stepping stone, of sorts, for LPD. Because these students start their exposure to law enforcement as early as 14, by the time they get to the academy at 21, there’s not a lot they haven’t seen, Kreft said.

They know exactly what they’re in for, and are itching to get into the field. By the time they enter the department, they’re already familiar with policies and procedures and know exactly how it operates.

“I fell in love with this department,” Bradbury said. “I don’t think I ever want to leave it.”

It’s a far cry from how Bradbury grew up. As a child, she didn’t like or trust the police, because she didn’t know any different, she said. The people she was raised with didn’t like the police, so she never questioned it.

“I didn’t have any good encounters with them until I joined the Explorer’s Post, and then everything changed,” Bradbury said.

Making recruiting a priority

For smaller departments like DeWitt, recruiting seemingly never ends. Chief Bruce Ferguson has a staff of six part-time officers and six full-time officers, all of whom seem to rotate in and out of the department.

Ferguson fills some positions with retired officers who aren’t ready to fully leave law enforcement yet, others with officers who work at other agencies and have time to pick up extra shifts.

DeWitt also tends to attract young officers straight from the academy, Ferguson said, who may not be ready for a busier department and want to start somewhere they can learn at a slower pace.

“I’m in a continual recruiting situation,” Ferguson said. “Retirees will retire full time, or youngsters will go to a busier department.”

It’s no different for Yankowski in Lansing, or for Michigan State Police Insp. Lisa Rish, who heads the recruiting division the state police.

MSP has worked to change some of the things they often hear keeps people from applying to be a trooper, Rish said. Mainly, they try to place new troopers at a post close to their home.

They’re active on social media, making sure all their followers know they’re hiring, Rish said.

“We’re always looking at how we can do things better, at how we can get our message across more effectively,” she said. “What drew me (to law enforcement) might not draw someone younger.”

So they post testimony from current troopers, detailing why they decided to become a trooper. Lt. Yvonne Brantley wrote about growing up in Detroit and hating the police until she met a MSP trooper when her family’s car caught on fire when she was 11 years old.

“Despite the chaos and emotion, the trooper was able to calm us down,” Brantley wrote. “I was surprised by how sensitive he was to our situation. He went above and beyond to help us, gave us a ride home and came inside for coffee. He sat and engaged in a real conversation with my grandmother; he was like nothing I had ever seen before.

“When he left, I told my grandmother, ‘That is what I want to be when I grow up!’”

Both MSP and LPD also have brought back their cadet programs, where as long as the recruits get a college education and work at the department until they turn 21, the department will pay for them to go to the academy and will give them bi-weekly paychecks during their time there.

Generally, paying for the academy is a recruit’s responsibility and they are not paid during that time unless they are sponsored by the department, like the cadets are.

LPD’s first three cadets, all of whom graduated from the Explorer’s Post, were sworn in as officers May 6. Bradbury is currently a cadet, and hopes to start at the academy in January after she turns 21.

Promoting diversity

Law enforcement has long been criticized for its lack of diversity, especially in cities with high minority populations, like Lansing.

Just 55% of Lansing’s population is white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Twenty-two percent is black, 12% is Hispanic, 10% is two of more races and 4% is Asian.

Yankowski wants to make sure LPD represents that demographic.

The 18 police academies across the state produce about 86% white, male applicants, Yankowski said. He has plenty of those.

That’s where the Explorer’s program comes in. For LPD, it always seems to come back to the Explorer’s.

“We really want to make sure we’re recruiting a diverse police officer,” Yankowski said. “Not just race. Gender, socioeconomic background, religion, morals, ethics, if they’re bilingual, if they live within the community.”

He’s backing up his words with actions. From 2016 to 2018, the percentage of minority and female hires at LPD has grown from 48% in 2016 to 60% in 2018.

In the Explorer’s program, Kreft said he has had students from Nepal, Russia, Nigeria, Cuba and Mexico interested in becoming officers. He’s relied on Sam Kandel, who is from Nepal, several times to translate while out on calls, Kreft said.

Kandel speaks Hindi, and can help bridge the gaps in the community between the growing Hindi-speaking population and police, Kreft said. Kreft has even called Kandel and put him on speaker phone to translate when he wasn’t there in person.

“It’s no secret that community trust isn’t what it needs to be right now,” Kreft said. “We’re able to interact with them and get them into the law enforcement career path and they become fantastic liasons.

“By taking a chance on the youth, we can really get there.”

Contact reporter Kara Berg at 517-377-1113 or kberg@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @karaberg95.