Everybody Speeds: Memphis-area tickets are down, but traffic deaths are up

As recently as 2012, the department had 2,400 sworn officers.

“Eighty percent of agencies nationwide will tell you that they have trouble retaining and recruiting police officers,” Dudley said.

Jillian Snider, an adjunct lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York City police officer, said she believes the difficulty in recruiting officers now lies in the fact that the perception of the job has changed so much, particularly with younger generations.

“I just think that the generation now that would be at the age to want to go into policing, it’s not a favorable job (for them) anymore,” she said. “If you feel like what you’re doing people don’t like because they don’t like you and they don’t like what you represent then you’re not going to be as inspired to get up and go to work every day.”

In Memphis, though, it wasn’t just COVID-19 and Floyd that affected policing efforts.

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“When you are trying to allocate resources, if you have to make the determination of, ‘OK, I’m going to turn out six sector cars tonight. Am I going to focus a whole sector car on doing traffic stops for speeding or do I possibly have a crew robbing people walking to the bus stop or jacking the bodega owner?’” Snider said. “When your resources are strapped, you are often going to have to sacrifice the low-level infractions like speeding.”

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The real trouble with speeding

Most people would probably admit to speeding from time to time, and is it really that bad?

Absolutely, said almost everyone interviewed for this story.

Snider, the former NYC cop who took part in traffic stops during her time on the force: “I find speeding to be one of the more dangerous infractions, looking at the spectrum of traffic violations that occur.”