The Knoxville Police Department will soon have a full complement of police officers, once three new recruits are added to their ranks.

They are scheduled to be sworn in at the Knoxville City Council meeting on Monday evening, and their presence will be welcome for a department which has been shorthanded for some time.

Police Chief Dan Losada tells KNIA/KRLS News it will still take time for these new officers to receive the training they need, and it will be about August before they can hit the streets on their own.

“There’s the state requirement that they go through the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, which is about a fourteen week program,” Losada says. “Then we have about another fourteen weeks of field training where they ride with senior established officers that guide them through the day-to-day practice of how we do business in Knoxville, Iowa.”

Chief Losada says his department has been stretched thin trying to make up for the absence of three officers; he himself has had to take patrol shifts, and various absences have at times left the department with just fifty percent of its strength available.

And he says police departments across the country have had trouble recruiting new personnel, as the difficulties of the job combined with unfavorable attitudes towards officers in general have made a law enforcement career less appealing.