Recruitment And Hiring Crisis Of American Law Enforcement

With the increase of diversity in the country, comes a wide variety of issues facing all sectors. In the criminal justice sector we see issues such as racial profiling, discrimination amongst others.

The objective of this thesis is to provide comprehensive information to all stakeholders who have an interest in enhancing minority recruitment and selection. The goal of this thesis is to address law enforcement professionals about the importance of diversifying police agencies; more importantly, is to address the underrepresentation of Asian-American police officers and the challenges of recruiting potential candidates from Asian communities. Through community policing, mediation, trust building, collaboration with stakeholders, and cultural diversity training, law enforcement agencies will achieve its recruiting and diversity goals. Targeting Asian cultural events, partnering up with higher learning institutions, and sending mass emails regarding job opportunities to criminal justice majors could produce students’ interests and desires to pursue a career in law enforcement (Castaneda & Ridgeway, 2010). Recruitment issues and needs will be examined; moreover, the importance of evaluating implemented strategies must be followed up in order to monitor community changes or problems that may arise (Tangel, 2015).

Diversity in law enforcement has grown to become a hot topic within the law enforcement community. The demographic of society has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and with that law enforcement has been changing, but have they been changing enough? Different law enforcement agencies have their own ways of implementing diversity in their practices and procedures, some of them are better than others, but with issues that happen today it is important that they do something.

In recent years, recruitment and retention of police officers has been a pain point for many departments across the nation. Odd and inflexible hours, uncompetitive pay, para-militaristic organizational structures, and a negative public perception have all worked to diminish the pool of applicants interested in careers in law enforcement. Add to the mix the sexist “brotherhood” police culture, emphasis on masculinity and aggression, and the nearly non-existent opportunities for advancement for women, and over half of the eligible workforce has been discouraged from even considering a career in law enforcement. In 2013, women comprised just over 57% of the labor force, but accounted for only 13% of sworn police officers (USDOL, 2013; Crooke, 2013). Not only are women sorely underrepresented in the field of law enforcement, but those who are employed experience discrimination at the hands of their supervisors and coworkers, and as a result, the attrition rate for women is often much higher than that of their male counterparts. Departments should pledge dedication to recruiting and retaining more female officers, as research indicates that not only do females perform just as well as males in patrol positions, but they also have a unique set of advantages to offer agencies when employed in law enforcement. In order to improve the recruitment and retention of females into policing roles, departments must determine the biggest deterrents for women who are considering the pursuit

As difficult as their job may be, and as big a toll as it may take on them emotionally, it is important to bear in mind that police officers are normal human beings with normal brains and mental processes. Consequently, they are prone to make the same stereotype-biased judgments the rest of us are. Because they are often operating under conditions of uncertainty, high discretion, and stress and threat, the pervasive stereotypes linking Blacks and Latinos with violence, crime, and even specifically weapons are likely to cause them to make misattributions in seeking to disambiguate the intentions and behaviors of citizens. This can lead to racially disparate rates of stops, searches, arrests, and use of force. Several interventions that aim to reduce bias or discriminatory behavior at the individual level warrant further investigation in the policing context. Nonnegative intergroup contact is especially promising given its strong evidence base and that it could be achieved through

Law enforcement and minorities have long been the focus of the criminal justice injustice within the United States. African Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans are a number of communities in the United States along with Caucasian or non-minorities as a whole, which make up a large portion of the United States. Racial discrimination has been a large factor the criminal justice system has been plagued with for many years. In the book Just Mercy, authored by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson details his life’s work to help those who were wrongfully convicted and biased towards in sentencing. A big part of the book is related to racial discrimination among officers. Analytically I will be looking at the question of whether the relations between the police and minority and non-minority communities differ. I will look at number of factors related to traffic enforcement practices, use of force and arrest of minorities and non-minorities in determining if there is any differences among police community relations.

Today like never before organizations are hoping to fill their positions with a group of diverse law enforcement officers that mirrors the populaces they serve. As organizations search for officers who reflect their settings in which they serve in , they are additionally expanding their meanings of decent variety. From this point of view, assorted variety can incorporate race, ethnic gathering, religion, sexual preference, and age. Being a minority working in the law enforcement field can be very helpful for an agency however, that specific group may still go unrecognized. This paper will provide a brief review of the disguised minority achievements as it relates to the U.S. Marshals Service in the past. It will also be examined in

This paper provides an overview of the problems facing the police in their efforts to improve relations with minority communities in the United States, as well as a survey of previous research and existing literature on cultural diversity

Though Asians make up the largest portion of the world’s population, Asian-Americans are one of the least represented minority groups within the United States. Out of an estimated 318 million people living in the U.S., Asians account for 5.2%, or approximately 17 million people. Compared to Hispanics at 54 million and African-Americans at 42 million, Asians and/or Asian-Americans are vastly outnumbered by the two other major minority groups and even more so by the majority, European-Americans. Even though Asians are typically considered the “model minority”, they are faced with the same issues that plague many other minority groups within the U.S. today to include stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and ethnocentrism. There has been a history of discriminatory national policies directed at the immigration of Asians to the U.S. and in times of duress, the labeling and targeted institutional discrimination of specific ethnicities of Asian-Americans as traitors based solely on country of origin and not on the deeds and actions of said U.S. citizens (Japanese internment camps of World War II).

Although the questionnaire and interview processes are useful in gaining a better understanding of the cultural competence of law enforcement agencies, they are not helpful in improving the cultural competency of those agencies. This is where instituting mandatory cultural competency training comes into play. For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission proposed steps and recommendations to increase cultural competency and one of those steps was to “develop and deploy effective EEO and diversity/inclusion training for different state and local law enforcement audiences, including department leadership, human resources, and hiring officials, union leadership, and individual officers.” (Yang, 2015). While this recommendation pertains to hiring practices, it would also be very beneficial for law enforcement agencies to have trainings. Cultural competency training is important and would greatly improve relations between law enforcement and the community.

Diversity recruitment is vital to any organization, especially that of a law enforcement agency. Many police departments across Missouri are struggling to maintain a workforce that is equally as diverse at the community it serves. According to The Police Chief magazine, one of the most effective recruitment techniques to achieve a diverse police force is to generate a positive perception of police within the community. (Pearsall & Kohlhepp, 2016)

Asian-Americans have often been stereotyped as the "model minority whose values are benign: strong work ethic, low profile, honor students, loyalty of family" (Sigmund, 1995, p.8). "Someone who is quiet, studious, and who plays the violin" (Lee, 1992, p.129) "preserving the sacred worth of human life, religious faith, community spirit and….to be teachers of tolerance hard work, fiscal responsibility, cooperation and love" (Takaki, 1989, p. 474-475). Yet Asian crimes by teens, both individually and in gangs, "have been cropping up like weeds….What has gone wrong?" (Sigmund, 1995, p.8). There seems to be a huge irony here, when one compares popular views of Asian Americans and their admirable work ethic to the increasing incidences of Asian related youth crimes. Upon a second examination, one may begin to question whether the phenomenon of Asian American crimes actually opposes the model minority work ethic, consider crime as an occupation: if the Asian American work ethic focuses on succeeding in the new world, then crime can not be ruled out as a means of attaining financial success. (Sigmund, 1995)

(Alexander C. , 2000) Outlined, pre the September 11 attacks on the world trade centre Asians were“ law abiding peaceful citizens” , however since the attacks on the world trade centre police have paid more attention to Asian communities, in particular Asian young males, indirectly identifying Asians as the new problem group. The Youth justice Board report (2004) outlined 30% of young Asian males compared to 19% black males were given a pre court disposal and 77% of Asian young females had received a pre- court disposal compared to young black females.

When it comes to race within law enforcement, male police officers still question whether women can handle the dangerous situations and physical confrontations that officers may be confronted with, while it is shown that most police women have easily met the expectations of their superiors. Indeed, studies have found that, in general, male and female officers perform in similar ways. In addition, research has found that most citizens have positive things to say about the work of police women (Worden,

A survey of police officers in South West USA showed pattern of resistance to the employment of LGBT officers with 69% of their respondents reporting that these individuals do not belong in law enforcement and 85% asserting that gay men would not be able to perform their job as well as others (Mallory, Hasenbush, & Sears, 2015)”. Another reason most agency lack diversity is that the “recruitment efforts of police departments are often too broad and fail to