The number of recruits putting their hands up to join Australia’s highest-paid police force has surged since they started being paid to train, but the number of women graduating has stalled as the force grapples with a chronic staff shortage.
There were 2060 officer vacancies as of June, data provided exclusively to the Herald reveals. A further 3147 officers were on leave, including workers’ compensation, parental leave and sick leave, as of February.
Despite paid training, flexible hours and part-time roles, women made up just one-quarter of recent graduates. Across the 20,000-strong force, female representation has remained stagnant at under 37 per cent for five years. Just 18.2 per cent of senior leadership roles are held by women, according to the latest annual report.
NSW Police are also battling a reputation crisis. Data from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research shows public confidence has fallen sharply. Between 2019 and 2025, confidence that the police meet victims’ needs fell from 70 to 56 per cent.
The force has faced a series of high-profile violent incidents. These include the fatal Tasering of 95-year-old Clare Nowland by an officer; two officers jailed for stomping on a mentally ill woman’s face; a recruit allegedly raping a female colleague at the training academy; and a series of reports exposing a toxic “boys’ club” culture where abusers were protected and victims silenced.
A long-awaited independent review into this culture is expected to be released shortly.
‘There are positions on the northern beaches that haven’t been filled for up to five years.’
Police Minister Yasmin Catley
NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley acknowledged that recruiting more women was vital to shifting this behaviour.
“Having an organisation that’s more diverse is important so that they don’t form cliquey groups … and having more women is always a good thing,” she said, adding the force did the best it could in recruiting and vetting the right people and setting up support structures.
“Police themselves don’t want people in the police force who are not doing the right thing.”
To address severe shortages, the government launched a $27 million recruitment and retention blitz between 2023-28. This included a historic pay increase, better mental health supports and paying recruits to undergo the 12-week Goulburn Academy training, which triggered a 70 per cent surge in applications. Last month, NSW Premier Chris Minns announced yet another advertising blitz.
The government is aggressively head-hunting, luring interstate officers with paid training and retained ranks, targeting elite athletes with flexible schedules, creating accelerated programs for specialists and launching a new cadet program for school-leavers. Girls took up nine of the 11 positions in the first police cadet trainee intake since 1977.
Vacancies have decreased from a recent high of 3000, Catley said, with 1200 probation constables expected to graduate from the Goulburn training academy between March 2027 and 2028. A new class has also been added to accommodate the boost in applications.
“There are positions on the northern beaches that haven’t been filled for up to five years; that’s a problem,” she said.
The force is also fighting attrition, with resignations and retirements outstripping graduates for years. NSW Police remain among the busiest in the country, responding to 1.8 million calls and making 180,000 arrests annually.
Catley said attrition among probationary officers in their first year on the job had dropped from 13 per cent to 9 per cent in two years, while overall attrition was expected to drop from the current rate of 6 per cent to 4 per cent in 2027.
Deputy Commissioner Corporate Services Dean Smith said that while the academy was constantly tweaking its entry criteria to ensure they were up to date, standards remained stringent.
“The increase in applications and the increase in numbers doesn’t mean that we have dropped standards,” he said.
“Being a police officer is rewarding and challenging in equal measure. Not everyone can be a police officer, but … the recruitment pipeline is strong for us, and that is certainly healthy.”
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Amber Schultz is a crime and justice reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.