There are fewer and fewer candidates for the PSP and this year 2,865 are competing

Around 2800 young people competed in the competition to hire new PSP agents, a number that has been decreasing every year, according to the Police.

Between February 6th and 27th, the Public Security Police held a competition to create a recruitment reserve for admission to the agent training course aimed at entering the agent career.

In a response sent to Lusa, the national management of the PSP reveals that 2865 candidates are competing for the agent course, 178 fewer than last year, when 3043 competed, 640 fewer than in 2022 (3505), 2,709 fewer than in 2021 ( 5574) and 321 fewer than in 2020 (3186).

Other data that Lusa had access to show that there are fewer and fewer candidates for PSP agents, with more than 16,000 candidates in the 1990s and in 2012 there were more than 10,000, now less than 3,000.

The PSP also states that in relation to the number of candidates considered capable of attending the agent training course at the Practical Police School (EPP), in Torres Novas, “it will only be possible to obtain a list after carrying out and completing all the tests inherent to the selection process”.

Police candidates now have to pass knowledge tests, physical exams, psychotechnical tests and a professional interview.

Speaking to Lusa, the president of the Police Professionals Union Association (ASPP/PSP) considered the number of candidates very low.

“These numbers reflect what we have been saying for a long time: lack of attractiveness and a total lack of interest among young people in running for the PSP”, said Paulo Santos, maintaining that the lack of candidates is related to structural problems, namely “low salaries, loss of working conditions and a dignity that the career already had and that it currently does not have”.

Asked whether police protests over the last two months for better wages and working conditions may have influenced these numbers, the union leader said no.

“It’s true that the recruitment deadline coincided with a day of struggle, but it has nothing to do with that, it has to do exactly with the appreciation that young people make of the conditions that the PSP has at the moment. The main reason is the lack of dignity that the PSP has had as a police career”, he explained.

Paulo Santos also considered that the selection of future police officers “is not compromised” due to the low number of candidates, but admitted that “when there are few candidates there is less capacity to make a tighter selection”.

In 2022, the conditions for accessing the PSP were changed, namely the minimum (18 years old) and maximum (30 years old) age for access to the profession.

“At the time we were critical of this change, as these were not the reasons that kept young people away and it did not resolve the root problem”, said the president of the PSP’s largest union, indicating the PSP’s three biggest problems today: “the lack of of candidates, flight of staff and those who already have the conditions to go into pre-retirement and are being blocked because there is no one willing to enter”.