The police service crisis is escalating.
Police Commissioner Ran Yaakov Shabtai will arrive in the Knesset this morning and make it clear to members of the Internal Security Committee: "If the erosion in police salaries continues, in about a year to a year and a half the country will have no police."
The commissioner will require committee members to support raising the salaries of young and junior police officers, who earn low salaries.
As reported in "Israel Today", most of the damage is to patrol officers who are involved in maintaining public order and law enforcement.
Data obtained by "Israel Today" shows that 625 scouts are currently missing from the police, which is about 15% of all scout standards at police stations.
"This is an insane amount," says a senior police officer, emphasizing: "There are stations where a third of the patrol is missing."
71% complained about the salary
Police commissioners are not happy to appear in Knesset committee hearings, but recently the commissioner has been required to appear before MKs time and time again in an attempt to persuade them. About two weeks ago he was required to appear before the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee He warned that for him, the repeal of the section would lead to the abandonment of the police on the ground, and today Saturn would appear before the Internal Security Committee in the face of the police service crisis.
Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai, Photo: Coco
Most of the crisis concerns young police officers in the first five years of their service, those who have not yet built a family and have not yet taken out a mortgage, who are looking for other jobs because of the low wages.
These are about 15,000 police officers, whose average salary is about NIS 9,500 gross.
The commissioner demands an increase in their salaries by about NIS 2,000, or alternatively - to grant them additional income tax credits. The commissioner is also expected to demand an increase in retirement quotas, as in the army.
These are about 5,000 high-paid police officers over the age of 50, who are forced to remain in the organization.
In an "organizational climate" survey conducted among those who resigned about six months ago, 71% of respondents answered that the reason for leaving was insufficient pay.
49% complained about burnout, 45% complained about high workload, 42% about long working hours, and 41% said it was difficult for them to balance the needs of the job and the family.
Data presented to the committee show that from the beginning of the year until May, there was a negative migration from the organization.
Police data also show that 31% of those resigning this year (142) are scouts who constitute 23% of permanent employees.
13% of those resigning are investigators, 7.5% detectives, 6% traffic policemen, 11% border guards and 6% YSM police officers (see attached table).
"Unsurprising data"
The chairman of the Internal Security Committee, MK Meirav Ben-Ari (Yesh Atid), commented on the data and said: "They are not surprising. I very much hope that the Ministry of Finance will understand the size of the hour and will already find solutions these days to prevent the abandonment of the police, as has been happening in recent months. "
And yet, in the end, the police are starting to sound optimistic: in May this year, 59 police officers resigned, but 28 of them returned to serve.
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