By Staff Reporter |

The Phoenix Police Department (PPD) is lowering its standards and shifting hiring practices in order to recruit and hire more female cops by 2030. 

PPD leadership explained during a city council meeting that they are working to align with the 30×30 Initiative, in which participating law enforcement agencies pledge to have female officers make up 30% of the force by 2030 at minimum. 

PPD Commander Warren Brewer confirmed that the department aims to have 30% of academy classes consisting of females by 2030. 

“That is a focus for us hiring,” said Brewer. “Hopefully we will stay in the double digits when it comes to hiring the female applicants.” 

11 other law enforcement agencies in Arizona have signed onto the 30×30 Initiative pledge: Apache Junction Police Department, Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control, Arizona State University Police Department, Gilbert Police Department, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Mesa Police Department, Queen Creek Police Department, Tempe Police Department, Tucson Police Department, University of Arizona Police Department, and Yuma Police Department. 

Nearly 400 law enforcement agencies across 46 states have signed onto the 30×30 Initiative pledge. The only states without any law enforcement agencies signed onto the pledge were Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

PPD’s latest academy class had 14 females enrolled, which Brewer said was “the highest” he’d seen in a recruiting class since he’s been in the department. The next class coming in has seven female recruits enrolled.

PPD confirmed that they’ve already begun lowering fitness standards to boost female recruits. 

Megan Avalos, PPD’s assistant director for human resources, explained that PPD has lowered pre-academy testing standards for physical agility and ability. 

“Pre-employment, we’re giving them an additional 12 seconds because they believe that they can get them ready for that test at the academy,” said Avalos. 

PPD’s Physical Ability Test previously required candidates to complete a course simulating essential job functions within two minutes and six seconds. In order to hire more women, PPD has increased the time limit for pre-academy testing to two minutes and twenty seconds. 

The test requires candidates to complete an obstacle navigation through climbing over barriers and maneuvering through tight spaces, pursuit simulation through short-distance sprinting and directional changes, victim rescue through dragging a weighted dummy to safety, and equipment carry through lifting and transporting weighted objects. 

Per PPD, the test is designed to reflect the real-world physical demands of policing.

This year, PPD once again failed to fill its sworn hiring target of 3,125.

Total recruits in the academy fell from the July 2025 total, but were higher than they were in July 2024. There were 127 recruits in the academy as of July, compared to 135 last July and 70 in July 2024. 

Total filled sworn positions also fell for the third year in a row, from 2,527 in July 2024, to 2,501 in July 2025, and then to 2,467 this July.

There were 2,594 total filled sworn positions and recruits this July, which was below July 2024 and July 2025 levels: 2,597 and 2,636, respectively. 

However, PPD did report that year-to-date applications represented a 9.6% increase over 2025, and that monthly application totals in 2026 have consistently exceeded or met prior-year performance. 

Avalos emphasized that PPD has worked at streamlining its recruitment and hiring processes to encourage candidates and prevent the loss of applicants along the way. 

Councilmember Jim Waring was skeptical of PPD’s narrative that recruitment and hiring processes were causing low recruitment. Waring said that recruitment was “worse off” than it was two years ago. 

Waring contended that the ongoing recruitment woes were the continuation of a social shift that occurred in 2020, citing the much higher recruitment numbers for the decades leading up to the pandemic. 

“Something changed in 2020 that made people not want to be Phoenix police officers, long before the incident that was mentioned or a lot of incidents that have been in the media, or whatever,” said Waring. “If we could figure out what that something is and address it, because that’s your problem. I don’t think it’s processes and so forth, that didn’t seem to effect things for the 20 years I’m looking at before. We used to kind of routinely get 300 people to fill up the classes without really putting a lot of effort into it, and now we’re not.” 

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