Police Staffing Diversity is not our Strength
Diversity has benefits but it is not our strength. Our strength must be where every officer can respond to every caller.
The Benefits of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Explained
The International Association of Chiefs of Police tries to explain the value:
Diversity is concerned with representation and perspectives; when an organization establishes equity, it demonstrates that it values inclusion and diversity. Doing so is essential to law enforcement operations and their effectiveness within the community.
But that’s not true. Regardless of how successfully the law enforcement workforce resembles the community, a citizen may have to interface with a first responder of a different race and skin color than themselves. Acceptance of that fact should be the goal, but it isn’t.
I’ve been the patient receiving care by EMS twice on duty and once off duty. I can’t tell you the demographics of my paramedics, but I am still overcome by gratitude.
Population Reflective Staffing
In the early 1990s, the conversation was more straightforward. At this time, they said, we are hiring minorities for law enforcement positions, because for many years, leadership that preceded us, (not us, your current enlightened sheriffs, and chiefs, but the other guys before us) blocked equally qualified minorities. At that time, and this is key, all qualifications being equal, preferred candidates would be the minority. My academy class was full of white guys with Hispanic last names that knew neither the culture nor the Spanish language. In that era, more than 1,000 applications were received for every officer hired. The ability to pick and choose is an era whose time has past.
Times Have Changed
Also, the hiring of minorities is a mandate driven by the promise to provide a diverse workforce who mirror the community. It is well documented that physical standards and criminal history thresholds in police recruiting are being critically lowered.
Every candidate comes to the same recruiting table for the same job. Shouldn’t everyone receive equal treatment in the hiring process and afterward in job placement? What happens when these policies also cause unfair treatment to the officers they stretch to hire?
In an AP article published recently in the Kansas City Star a black chief explains how his immutable racial characteristics opens doors to black people who would not speak openly with a white police chief:
‘(Atlanta Police Chief Rodney) Bryant said that even as a Black leader, without the community’s support, it’s hard to do the job. But the community conversations have been easier because he is Black, he said. “One of the things that I feel privileged about is that, as a Black chief, it gave me the ability to go into certain communities and homes and really hear people and hear their true plight,” Bryant said. “In some communities, they don’t have that same trust, if the person was white.”’
Does this not sound like the 50s and the 60s when white people wouldn’t speak to black officers? We wouldn’t tolerate it then and must not today. To be clear, we are not speaking of exceptional accommodations, such as suicidal teen threatening to jump off a bridge and demanding to speak to a female deputy. I am describing a ‘pattern and practice’ that is occurring daily where different authority is ascribed to officers in the course of the business of police work based on how they were born.
Research Study Offers Proof, Bad Proof
Here is the success story that needs to go away. “Over the course of 100 shifts, Black officers made, on average, about 16 fewer stops and two fewer arrests — a 20% to 30% reduction compared to white officers in comparable scenarios.”
“We see two groups of officers going out, and they’re treating the same group of civilians differently,” Knox said. “It’s troubling.” This disparity was most pronounced in majority-Black neighborhoods, researchers found, and was predominantly focused on minor crimes and not violent offenses.
The study attempted to paint a more level-headed and balanced approach by black officers, by not initiating high-risk contacts and less likelihood of a resisting arrest scenario clearly by fewer arrests.
Thirty years ago, the conclusions of this report would be interpreted to describe black and hispanic to be officers 25% less effective or less motivated than white officers and this study would be buried in the woods. Anyone who understands the business of policing would recognize that those ‘two fewer arrests’ were just low hanging fruit, but now those criminals remain on the street committing new crimes.
A Verified Ferguson Effect
Following the deadly force encounter between Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, several aspersions were made regarding the lack of diversity of the Ferguson Police Department. The Ferguson Police Department of 53 officers only had three black officers.
This was repeatedly inserted into the national conversation by the media. The department was not representative of the community however Ferguson, MO, has changed its demographics dramatically in the last three decades. Hiring a police officer (or a firefighter) for a city is a long-term commitment. Police agencies hire officers generally for a term of 20, 25, or sometimes 30 years.
It is also likely that Ferguson was not the most desired law enforcement job in the region. Larger agencies offer better pay, benefits, and career growth opportunities. The big dog in the region gets to pick and choose their preferred candidates and smaller agencies fill vacancies from those not hired.
Staffing needs in law enforcement scale poorly in regression. A vacancy within an agency of 20 officers has a grossly outsized impact compared an agency of 200 or 2,000 officers. When a city the size of Ferguson has a staffing gap, they lack the luxury of waiting to hire a desired minority.
Chief Malik Aziz was outspoken on national news. He criticized Ferguson for failing to meet the demographics or mirror the community and describes city and department leaders as being culturally disconnected to the community they serve. He was a high-ranking member of the Dallas Police Department and executive director of the National Black Police Association at the time. Today he is the chief of the Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland.
Tracie Keesee, a law enforcement veteran from Denver P.D. and co-founder of the UCLA Center for Policing Equity, criticized the decision to bring out heavy armor and complained that the lack of diversity in command staff illustrated their lack of insight. She knew that riot response was being addressed through mutual agreements with the county, other local agencies and state police. She also knew that a department of that size only had the capacity to put a maximum of a dozen cops out per shift.
Following a grand jury inquiry and an Eric Holder Department of Justice investigation, Officer Wilson’s actions were found to be within policy, justified, not-discriminatory and non-criminal. Regardless, the Ferguson Police Department was placed under a DOJ consent decree, branded racist, and simultaneously given the assignment of increase minority hiring.
Discrimination and Unfair Treatment
The expectation from the community for police to hire more officers from certain races, ethnic groups, and cultures, for the benefit of the community, must be squelched. How about a scenario where I move to Tokyo or Cairo with an expectation that there should be an officer on duty who can speak to me in English whatever time I call for assistance?
During my career, there were beats that were predominately Vietnamese, Haitian, Hispanic, black and white. The Haitian community lacks shyness. At a community meeting, they insisted on more Haitian officers and deputies, and their demands were clear in English absent the language component. Only those deputies and their cultural competence would be able to resolve their 911 calls.
Black officers were challenging to recruit but Haitian or Vietnamese officers were nearly impossible to hire. Many of them had more reasons not to join than to join. Too often they lacked the support of their families, had other goals, or preferred not to be in that role in their community, usually for good reason.
We were fortunate to gain those who joined our ranks. In the investigation bureau, some people who spoke Spanish kept it a closely guarded secret, otherwise they would be constantly on the phone translating rather than working their cases.
Black officers in majority black communities endured inexcusable verbal abuse and contempt from those they were protecting. In every career move or lateral transfer, their absence from their assignment was a consideration. Patrol officers daily hear calls on the radio from dispatch for officers who can possibly translate German, Russian or Japanese. We figure it out using technological services and other accommodations.
Perception
A recent survey asked white people how a racially balanced neighborhood would appear and after being told black people represented 13% of the population (nationally) they identified the balance to be 12%-15%. Many black people surveyed described a racially integrated neighborhood to be 50% black and 50% white. Church studies find that a room 75% full tells visitors that there is no room for them.
When an agency develops the mirror image of staffing to the community, what will be the product of that effort?
Agencies have achieved this staffing vs. population governing parallel. New York City, our largest local agency and the largest municipal police department in the world has achieved this benchmark. While the NYPD does not precisely balance their shares of officers, with respect to the demographic categories of white, black, and Hispanic, Hispanic officers are modestly overrepresented.
The NYPD's data on its racial makeup show that the force is already representative of New York City's diversity: The department is 44 percent white, 30 percent Hispanic, 15 percent black, 10 percent Asian, and less than 1 percent American Indian.
“… Atlanta, has long been admired for its ability to attract a diverse force — 60 percent of sworn officers are black in a city where 52.4 percent of residents are.” Despite the diversity achievement, Atlanta is experiencing the opposite of a benefit.
Atlanta police investigated 7% more homicides in 2022 than in 2021. Burglaries, shoplifting and car thefts also increased in the city. For the third consecutive year, homicide investigations have increased in the city. Atlanta police investigated 170 homicides in 2022. That rate has slowed down, however, since it increased by approximately 60% from 2019 to 2020.
"No, it does not [concern me]," [Mayor Eric] Adams told Good Day New York on Monday when asked about the more than 1,500 officers who have either resigned or retired from the New York City Police Department this year.
"We got an amazing recruitment campaign coming in. This is a great opportunity to diversify the department."Dorothy Moses Schultz pointed out in her article Bleeding Blue in City Journal: Fewer than half (42 percent) of the department’s police officers are white; it’s hard to believe that white officers are the only ones leaving.
This should cause pause for anyone who observes a vegan Eric Adams making the default meal in NYC hospitals a plant-based dinner. He does not hesitate to impose his will, which is that certain applicants are more welcome than others. Adams has also shown his bias ‘during a 2019 speech about his white colleagues in the NYPD resurfaced. "I kicked those crackers' a--," Adams said. "I was unbelievable in the police department."’
DEI on Campus
‘Given the importance of diversity to excellence (as we are told), it would seem like historically black College /University (HBCUs) are suffering badly from a critical lack of it. But HBCUs do not act like they lack diversity, equity, or inclusion, or that they need to act rapidly to make their campuses “look like America.” Quite the contrary.’
The HBCU that I have worked with fits this pattern. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, most schools have about 75 percent of students are black with some institutions at 90 percent and above. They have a Center for Law and Social Justice but no intentional effort for diversity, equity, or inclusion. Many of their criminal justice majors stated they aspire to work on social causes or become defense attorneys. Those that look to law enforcement jobs in the federal sector describe their desire to change the system from within.
It appears that many organizations, Mayor Eric Adams, and the HBCUs have a discriminatory vision of diversity in criminal justice that leave a lot of people out.
Please keep all our frontline law enforcement officers in your prayers!
References:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/stretched-thin
https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/finding-equity-inclusion-and-diversity-in-policing/
Diversity is concerned with representation and perspectives; when an organization establishes equity, it demonstrates that it values inclusion and diversity. Doing so is essential to law enforcement operations and their effectiveness within the community.
Others, like Erika Maye, a senior leader for the nonprofit civil rights organization Color of Change, say pushes for diversity are a misstep. “They don’t go deep enough or tackle the root issues,” she said. “Police violence is not an issue of representation.”
Instead, Color of Change advocates for cities to divest from policing and invest in health care, education and job training. “To really protect Black lives, we feel we really need to upend the current policing system,” Maye said.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/can-diverse-police-departments-ease-community-tension
“But officials say that having a diverse force is only one way of moving forward. In fact, they point out, research is mixed as to whether diversity helps reduce tensions. Other strategies, they say, help as much or more, such as hiring officers who know and understand the community, asking officers to build better relationships with neighborhoods they serve, reducing officers’ use of aggressive arrest tactics and increasing officer training.”
https://www.fergusoncity.com/DocumentCenter/View/1920/Negotiated-Ferguson-Consent-Decree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_Police_Department_(Missouri)
https://www.city-journal.org/article/wheres-the-dei-at-the-hbcus
https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article274273910.html
https://www.nyc.gov/site/ccrb/policy/data-transparency-initiative-mos.page
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/eric-adams-calls-record-police-exodus-great-for-diversity/
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/atlanta-crime-homicide-theft-statistics-2022
Excellent article. The longer I’m in this career, the more scams I discover. VNR has a 50 year safety record yet our weak leaders removed of. No one has shown me where a death has occurred in a sober and healthy person due to the position they are placed but cops are still being arrested for killing people due to “positional asphyxia”. The lie of diversity is continuing without a trace of evidence it’s good for public safety. After all, if it worked, wouldn’t New York and Los Angeles be the safest cities in our country? I recently spoke with a chief that spent millions on ways to “gain trust” with the community. I asked him how it was working to reduce crime and he couldn’t say. We better figure this out soon or we the worse is yet to come. Thanks for the great article.
When I was discharged from the military in 2007, I made my first several tries to get hired.
I would go to hiring events, surrounded by 100s of applicants. Mostly wearing a mix and match assortment of old military PT shirts. Most were white men, like myself. Most looked to be in their mid-20s like me. And they hired maybe 4. Of that, the goal was generally half women, and or a minority.
I soon realized I wasn't competing with 300-500 people. And there weren't 4 spots for me. There was 2 maybe open to white men. Inevitably, a big proportion were legacy kids whose parents were cops. So I felt like I was 1 of 380 applying for the 1 open spot for a white guy.
"Diversity" has always been a new form of discrimination to me. With dramatically diminishing returns, because now all those agencies can't get enough apps to fill openings, but still want to balance the scale.
Well said.