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In 2020, despite the widespread police protests, trooper-citizen contacts had been trending sharply down, mainly due to coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions throughout parts of last year. (The PSP’s full 2020 report is due in late April).
Corporal Brian Pressley
Corporal Brian Pressley, Recruitment Services Section Supervisor, Pennsylvania State Police.
The recruiter
The push to change the department remains in high gear.
A major part of meeting this social justice moment is ensuring troopers who meet the community during police encounters actually look like the community they patrol, PSP officials said.
This is where recruiters like Cpl. Pressley come in. He’s a product of a North Philly housing project, and he once held world views similar to those of the young minorities he targets as future state troopers.
“I grew up in an underserved community in the city,” he said in a PennLive interview. “You pretty much saw Philly PD. You never saw state police. For state police to come into underserved communities and explain what we do, it’s just huge.”
Huge, Pressley says, because it holds the power to change the lives of successful recruits, while transforming the state police.
Those new troopers obtain an instant ticket to the middle-class courtesy of PSP’s $63,000 starting salary. Meanwhile, their presence on the force helps re-invent and invigorate the identity and culture of one of the country’s oldest and biggest statewide law enforcement institutions.
It’s a win-win. And Pressley’s the perfect person to proselytize PSP’s recruitment message because of the profound impact becoming a trooper has made in his own life.
“It is the best career decision I ever made,” he said. “This is not a position for me. This is a life-changing thing for me. I would recommend it to anyone. It will bless them, their families and generations to come.”
Still, Pressley’s career choice often comes as a shock, especially when he’s back home and hanging out in Philly.
“I get that a lot: ‘You are so nice. I didn’t think you would be a state trooper,’” Pressley said, recounting reactions after he reveals his job in social situations. “We are nice,” he tells them. “But we have a job to do.”
Even at the height of the police backlash last summer, Pressley said he never took heat from family or close friends in the inner city for being on the “wrong side.”
“It just hasn’t been an issue,” he said. “All my friends and family respect me. They don’t see me in that light, because they know who I am.”
Selling the job to other minorities in urban settings like Philly is another matter. It requires constant and consistent effort, which is why Pressley says he never misses an opportunity.
He repeatedly returns to his roots and keeps a keen eye out for potential trooper talent, regardless of the situation.
As for what catches his eye?
“An individual with a good attitude,” he said. “Honestly, that’s what I’m looking for. Attitude will take you far. Can you smile? If you’re smiling, you probably like people. You can’t protect and serve if you don’t like people. Positive disposition is what I’m looking for. Physical shape is always great. It is a physical academy,” he added of the PSP’s military-style, 1,100-hour training marathon.
When Pressley spots that special something, he doesn’t hesitate. “Let me talk to you for a second,” he tells his target. “I have an opportunity maybe you never thought about.”
Simply spotting talent isn’t enough, however.
PSP is constantly stepping up its efforts to ensure its minority applicants follow through by taking the entrance exam, then showing up for their 28 weeks inside the residential cadet academy in Derry Township.
To do this, PSP has plucked a page from college football recruiters, making home visits to meet the candidate’s family, especially mom, then making follow-up phone calls and texts throughout the intake process.
“Your house is a sacred place,” Pressley said. “If we can get in your house, that’s intimate.”
Instead of a single test date, PSP now schedules a weeks-long exam window at multiple locations across the state. This, so good candidates aren’t eliminated right at the start.
All of it’s working to increase the number of women and minorities in the state police ranks, albeit slowly.
Transformation may be coming
Lt. Col. Paris noted that during the 2018 candidate testing cycle, some 11,000 applicants had signed up, including more than 4,000 who were women or minorities. But just 25% of those latter applicants showed up for the entry test.
Now, PSP gives the exams at up to eight civil service testing sites across the state, holding testing dates over a number of weeks. The result is 47 percent of women and minority applicants now take the entry exam.
“We are trying to be sensitive to all of those things,” Paris said.