What problem do the police departments across the United States face?

Police departments in many communities across the United States say they are facing a serious manpower shortage and attracting new recruits is not as easy as it used to be. Police officer Reggie Brown is on patrol in Oakland, California, a city notorious for its crime rate. After 18 years, Brown says the job has become routine. When he started, he loved the excitement. "It was everything you could dream of, I mean you get to drive fast, chase folks, put people in jail. It was like, you know, on a nightly basis there was plenty of action back then." The promise of such thrills had young people like him lining up for police work 20 or 30 years ago. But, as Miami Police Department spokesman Delrish Moss notes, things have changed, "When I grew up, you wanted to be a police officer, an astronaut or president of the United States. I don’t hear those three on the top of the list anymore."