The project examines shortages of police manpower and analyzes the economic content of police hiring standards. A monopsony explanation of shortages is rejected in favor of a dynamic shortage model and a more rigorous model stressing the interaction of wages, hiring standards, authorized employment levels, and vacancy rates. Through mulitple regression techniques, the characteristics sought by the Oakland (California) Police Department testing process between 1965 and 1971 are defined. The probability of success is greatly increased as years of education increase, and is also raised by previous police experience and high previous wages. It is decreased by minority group status and local residence. Recent changes are reviewed, such as aggressive minority recruiting and affirmative action programs, which have greatly increased minority representation on the force. A review of the literature and a bibliography are included. (Author)