By Jim Burch, President, National Policing Institute
We’re heading into 2026 with a public safety landscape that feels anything but predictable. While these times may feel unsettled, the dedication of law enforcement to serve and protect their communities endures. This is a time-tested truth that we cannot overlook.
Crime rates have continued to decline nationally, but communities and their residents don’t necessarily feel safer. Technology is transforming policing more rapidly than policy can keep pace. Political polarization and frustration with political leaders continue to grow. Deep fake and generative AI create uncertainty about the trustworthiness of what we see and hear.
American policing is at the center of these dynamics, but not by choice. The reality is that policing is compelled to face them in order to serve and protect communities in 2026.
As we kick off the new year, several factors and trends are worth considering. Here are six high-stakes trends we believe are likely to impact U.S. policing and public safety in 2026.
1. The workforce crisis deepens
For years, the conversation in law enforcement has been dominated by a “recruiting challenge.” This framing may dangerously misread the problem, though. This isn’t just about a shallow applicant pool; we’re likely facing a full-blown workforce crisis that threatens the operational readiness of agencies nationwide, despite indications that some agencies are seeing some improvement in hiring and retention.
The crisis centers around a multi-pronged threat:
- Recruitment: The pipeline of new applicants remains strained to varying levels, with generational shifts in career-path preferences and a challenging political and social climate.
- Retention: Agencies continue to lose experienced, seasoned officers and leaders. This “brain drain” of institutional knowledge — of the officers who mentor others, lead through turbulent times, and effectively manage high-stakes functions and units — is harmful.
- Wellness: Those who remain feel the pressure and are stretched to (and beyond) their limits. Chronic understaffing, growing call complexity and expectations, and the pressures outlined in the other trends here are creating unprecedented levels of burnout. This creates a vicious cycle where increased organizational stress and poor wellness result in greater attrition. Burned out officers leave at the first opportunity. You’ve heard them — ”I’m going as soon as I’m eligible.”
This isn’t just an HR problem; it’s the opposite of a “force multiplier” and it makes every other challenge harder to solve. Agencies continue to struggle with reduced budgets and staffing that make the everyday call-response demand even more challenging.
At the same time, they face growing homeland security threats, an increasing number of major events and First Amendment assemblies, the continuing need to maintain and build neighborhood trust at a time of intense tension in some places, and the need to thoughtfully implement rapidly evolving technologies, all while being in a constant state of personnel triage.
The bottom line: The winning strategy will shift from a singular focus on recruitment to a holistic one on retention, wellness, job satisfaction and workforce modernization. To attract (and keep) the talent they need, agencies need to rethink the traditional paths and boundaries of the profession.
| WATCH: San Francisco’s recruitment reboot is rewriting the playbook for hiring cops
2. Increased homeland security risks with the 25th anniversary of 9/11
Twenty-five years after 9/11, this anniversary carries symbolic weight: the kind that opportunists tend to notice.
The Department of Homeland Security’s 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment warns that the U.S. faces “pressing threats” from a mix of foreign terrorist networks, domestic extremists, malicious cyber actors, and transnational criminal organizations. Online radicalization, geopolitical conflicts, and increasingly sophisticated foreign influence efforts don’t help. The threat environment is persistent, adaptive, and evolving.
For local law enforcement, this means more training, more briefings, more infrastructure checks, more community reassurance and more eyes on soft targets. Officers, including the very large number of them who are likely too young to remember 9/11 or any attacks on the homeland prior to that, will see upticks in suspicious activity reports and requests for patrol presence from schools, religious institutions, and transportation hubs.
These growing demands will coincide with other major events such as the World Cup and midterm election year and other political events taking place in cities across the country where staffing, funding and federal-local relations are strained. Leaders will carry the weight of heightened expectations from elected officials and the public, even if major incidents never materialize.
The bottom line: The months leading up to September 2026 will be challenging. Agencies should treat the anniversary as a planning horizon:
- Tighten coordination with federal partners.
- Reinforce information-sharing channels.
- Prepare younger officers through scenario-based training.
Getting ahead of the operational tempo will protect both capacity and public trust. And let’s not lose sight of the midterm elections less than 60 days after the anniversary.
| READ: The systems that can fail: Six vulnerabilities to address before major events
3. Crime stats and public perceptions continue to diverge
National and even citywide crime trends may be stabilizing, but the realities — and particularly the perceptions — of crime and violence don’t always follow suit. Local events and national narratives play an outsized role in swaying public opinion.
For instance, when crime surges on a block, the entire neighborhood hears about it and feels it. That creates a reality where perception outpaces events. Conversely, others may feel personally safe but believe that crime is a serious problem nationally: especially when political rhetoric, media narratives, and social media amplify isolated incidents into apparent crime waves.
This poses a strategy and communication challenge for policing leaders. Chiefs must reconcile the tension between local fear and aggregated statistics that few members of the public really follow.
The bottom line: In 2026, the fight for public trust and confidence will depend on understanding that a simple national or citywide stat isn’t good enough. Public safety leaders need to take neighborhood or “place-based” local realities seriously and explain them honestly, even when citywide charts present a different reality. Aggregated stats are important, but often defy the perceptions, fears, and realities of many.
4. Rapid technology adoption outpaces policy and oversight
AI-powered tools are no longer futuristic; they’re becoming part of everyday policing. Agencies are adopting emerging technologies at a rapid pace because the demand to do more and do better necessitate them.
But governance hasn’t kept up.
Adoption of AI tools often comes with rapid implementation and relatively limited oversight. This challenge is further compounded by concerns about the technology itself, including issues of accuracy, bias, and privacy.
Agencies want more efficiency. Communities want more transparency. Meanwhile, policymakers want guardrails, and officers simply want tools that make their jobs more manageable and effective.
The bottom line: In 2026, the winners will be agencies that match rapid adoption with thoughtful implementation, careful assessment and credible governance — not those who simply “deploy first, explain later.”
| DOWNLOAD: What every agency needs in place before deploying generative AI
5. Election-year pressures heighten demands on public safety agencies
Every election season feels tense now, but 2026 may set a new bar. Election workers and candidates and incumbents are facing increasing threats and harassment since 2020, and the emotional climate surrounding the simple act of voting has become increasingly tense.
Resources will be strained, yet local agencies will be expected to reassure communities, ensure the safety and peacefulness of protests and counter-protests, monitor online threats, safeguard election workers, intervene quickly when rumors spread, and stay politically neutral amidst a political minefield.
For frontline officers, just about anything can become controversial, and this puts officers at risk. For leaders, there will be plenty of “no-win” situations, and mistakes or misjudgments will be magnified, locally and very possibly nationally.
The bottom line: Even if crime doesn’t rise in 2026, tension will. Agencies will need skill, strategy, and transparency to manage it. The wisest course is proactive preparation:
- Reinforce expectations around neutrality.
- Strengthen rumor-control and information-sharing channels.
- Train supervisors to support officers caught in high-visibility encounters.
6. Mis- and disinformation become core public safety challenges
Deepfakes and generative AI are now so accessible that a teenager can fabricate a crisis in a matter of minutes and make it look real.
This is a nightmare scenario for public safety agencies in a polarized election year already debating crime, legitimacy, and trust. A fake shooting video can spark fear in a neighborhood where violence is actually declining. A synthetic audio clip of an officer uttering slurs can ignite protests overnight. A fabricated video from a polling site can fuel claims of fraud or voter intimidation. Law enforcement’s response to a 911 call for a crime in progress that isn’t real, aka “swatting,” can have major consequences for officers and members of the community.
Agencies will see a growing need to reckon with these realities, including debunking viral videos and building rapid-response communication strategies.
The bottom line: In 2026, the most dangerous call of the year or the next viral video might be the one that never happened. The best defense is early coordination:
- Clarify verification protocols.
- Strengthen ties with local media.
- Identify who speaks when.
- Develop a playbook for debunking false content.
A few well-rehearsed steps can keep a fabricated crisis from becoming a real one.
| WATCH: How police can prepare for AI, doxxing and disinformation
What this means for your agency in 2026
Public safety in 2026 won’t be shaped by any one challenge. Add to the challenges listed above a projected reduction in revenues in cities as major federal funding programs such as the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) phase out, and these issues combine to form a stress test for America’s policing institutions.
But this isn’t a doomsday prediction. It’s a chance to rethink what policing looks like in a world where threats are more complex, information moves faster than verification, and communities expect more transparency and precision than ever before.
Agencies that lean into these challenges with better communication, smarter partnerships, stronger analytic capacity, clearer technology governance, and more intentional workforce strategies will not just survive the year ahead; they will set the model for public safety in the decade to come.
The stakes are high, but so is the potential. How agencies respond will say a great deal about the future of public safety in America. In that sense, 2026 isn’t just another year on the calendar. It’s an inflection point. And what we do with it will matter.
What do you think will be the biggest trend to watch in policing in 2026? Share below.
About the National Policing Institute
NPI’s mission is to promote safe and effective policing. Our tools and services may be valuable resources in helping your agency prepare for 2026:
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Learn more about the Public Safety Confidence Index we’re launching with ZenCity.
Read our report, Policing in a Time of Elections, for strategies and best practices in 2026.
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Contact us today to see how we can support your agency’s goals and help you stay ahead of the trends in 2026.