increasing police diversity

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HRC #2

Executive Session PapersHuman Rights Commissions and Criminal Justice

Marea L. Beeman, Series Editor

Increasing Diversity in Police Departments:Strategies and Tools for

Human Rights Commissions and Others

Prepared by Alexa Kasdan for the Kennedy School of GovernmentsExecutive Session on Human Rights Commissions and Criminal Justice

John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard UniversityOctober 2006

his paper seeks to help Human Rightsand Human Relations Commissionsacross the United States work with

police officials and others to increase raceand gender diversity among lawenforcement personnel in their jurisdictions.The paper draws on experience of police andhuman rights agencies from threejurisdictions: Rhode Island, Kentucky, andAtlanta, Georgia. It describes innovativerecruitment strategies and policies that

should prove useful in provoking furtherinnovation in other cities and states.

Diversity is particularly important in lawenforcement. Police depend on the supportand assistance of the public, yet members ofracial and ethnic minorities tend to viewpolice less favorably than their whitecounterparts. Because of the visibility ofpolice officers in American communities, adiverse agency publicly displays its

commitment to equal treatment in lawenforcement. Diversity in the ranks can alsohelp make police personnel more sensitiveto the use of racially or ethnically offensivelanguage in casual as well as publicconversations. These are advantages even incommunities where residents are

overwhelmingly of a single race or ethnicity.Diversity matters everywhere.

Not Just a Local Issue

With the exception of the work ofcomparatively small numbers of federal lawenforcement officers and state police,policing in America is the responsibility ofcities and counties. State officials typicallyleave the recruiting and hiring decisions of

police departments to localities. But stateofficials can and should be aware ofstatewide police force diversity, and shouldprovide support for local departments toimprove recruiting techniques and hiringpractices.

Why? State officials have a wider view fromwhich to objectively assess the statewidepatterns of diversity in law enforcement, tonote large differences between adjoining

towns, and to measure citizen satisfactionwith police practices relating to diversity.Without interfering in local policedepartments operations, states can offervarious incentives such as grants andtraining opportunities to departmentsseeking to diversify.

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Rhode Island, for example, is in theplanning stages of creating a statewidepolice academy and a statewide pool oftrainees. Currently, the state operates threeseparate academies: a state police academy,

a Providence-only academy, and a municipalacademy for local departments other thanProvidence. The Providence academyattracts a diverse pool of trainees, but if, forexample, 30 recruits successfully attend theProvidence academy and only 10 are hired,there has been no way, until now, for otherjurisdictions to hire the other 20 recruits.Under the new plan, there will be onefacility, one training curriculum, and onepool of recruits to draw from statewide.

This is a good example of how stateinitiative can improve local access to a morediverse pool of candidates while also savingcosts.

Assessing Diversity: Questions to Ask

Police force diversity is not somethingachieved without firm commitments fromthe police chief and top policeadministrators to make it a priority.Outsiders such as human rightscommissioners, district attorneys, and cityofficials can provide valuable support toencourage a police department to undertakeefforts to achieve and maintain diversity, butthis support is no substitute for leadership atthe top.

To probe whether a police department isdoing all it can to promote diversity,consider asking some of the followingquestions:

Does the department recruit out ofstate? Due to differingdemographics and job markets,where you go matters, and oftenstrategically recruiting outside of

ones city or state can lead to a morediverse pool of applicants.

Does the department criticallyevaluate the reasons that minority

and female applicants are not hired?Such a review can reveal factors,such as poor credit ratings, failure tomeet certain physical fitnessstandards, or prior drug usage, thatdisproportionately eliminate minorityor female candidates.

Has the department compared itsstandards, such as those forpsychometric exams or physical

fitness requirements, to those ofother departments across the state?Some departments have found thatthey are losing diversity in theircandidates because of standards thatare higher than those that prevail intheir state.

Does the department have a long-term strategy for mentoring minorityyouth and encouraging them to

consider law enforcement careers?Partnering with other agencies canbe an effective way to approachoutreach and mentoring.

If the answers to these queries indicate roomfor some more innovative recruitmentstrategies, consider suggesting some of theapproaches taken by other policedepartments.

A Menu of Creative Strategies forDiversity

The following array of recruitment strategiesdraws heavily on the experience of onepolice chief, Richard Pennington, in Atlanta,Georgia, who has made improved officerdiversity a high priority. The list also

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contains approaches uncovered by oursurvey of Rhode Island police agencies. Thestrategies fall under four broad categories:

1. Partnerships and Collaborations

2. Outreach3. Hiring Reform

4. Long-term Recruitment Efforts

1. Partnerships and Collaborations

Expanded Partnership with aWorkforce Development Agency:Every locality has some form ofworkforce development agency thatadministers employment and training

programs mandated under the federalWorkforce Investment Act (WIA) of1998. In Atlanta, that agencysupports the police departmentsrecruiting efforts in several standardways, such as advertising vacantpositions and test dates, posting jobopenings and minimum requirementson its web site, and providing drugtesting for applicants, but the AtlantaWorkforce Development Agency

goes further by performing thefollowing functions:

o Providing a personal trainerto aid applicants in passingthe departments physicalabilities test;

o Assisting new out of stateemployees in accessingservices in order to facilitatea smooth transition; and

o Helping to reach out tominority youth in Atlanta andto publicize youthemployment opportunitieswith the APD.

Warwick, Rhode Island PolicePartnership with Academic

Institutions:The Warwick PoliceDepartment partners with graduatestudent researchers from a local

university to conduct research andanalysis on the problem ofrecruitment and retention of minoritypolice officers. Currently,researchers are in the process ofconducting surveys of students ofcolor at Rhode Island colleges anduniversities. These surveys aim toassess student attitudes towardspolice and to evaluate why thosestudents may or may not be

interested in a career as a policeofficer. According to the WarwickPolice Department Recruitment plan,researchers will also review currentrecruitment policies, interview policerecruiters, and compile a report offindings and recommendedstrategies.

Providence, Rhode Island Policeand Community Collaboration:

The Providence Police Department,already the most diverse in the state,launched a new recruitmentcampaign in early 2006 focused onattracting women and minoritycandidates. The drive consisted ofneighborhood-based study halls withmentors and coaches helpingpotential candidates to prepare forthe police exam. The study hallswere organized in conjunction with

the Omni Development Corporationand the Urban League of RhodeIsland and included instruction inphysical fitness, grammar,arithmetic, reading comprehension,test taking and incident reportwriting. In addition the driveutilized media and public outreach

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targeted to minority communities.All classes were free and open to allapplicants.

Contact with Military Bases: The

Atlanta Police Department maintainscontact with all major U.S. militarybases in order to advertise jobopportunities.

2. Outreach

Recruitment Road Trips: TheAtlanta Police Department (APD)chooses where it conducts out-of-

town recruiting based on an analysisof demographics, unemploymentrates and recent layoffs of policeofficers. Prior to each tripadvertisements are placed inminority newspapers and on radiostations. While on the road, the APDrents out a hotel conference roomwhere it provides information as wellas conducts tests and interviews withpotential recruits. Cities visited by

APD recruiters include: ClevelandOH; Saint Paul/Minneapolis, MN;Birmingham/Montgomery, AL;Chattanooga, TN; Jackson, MS;Milwaukee, WI; Chicago, IL:Suffolk County/Buffalo/Rochester,NY; St. Louis, MO;Macon/Columbus/Savannah, GA;Columbia/Charleston, SC; NewYork, NY; Charlottesville, WV;Philadelphia, PA; Detroit, MI;

Pittsburgh, PA and San Juan, PuertoRico.

Targeted Recruiting to LatinoCommunity: The APD RecruitmentUnit reaches out to Atlantas rapidlygrowing Latino community throughthe following tactics:

o Mass Media Advertisingthrough local Spanish-language and Latinocommunity media outlets

(TV, radio and newspapers);o Attendance at job fairs

sponsored by the LatinAmerican Association; and

o Placing posters and flyersinside of restaurants in thelocal Latino community.

Aggressive Advertising: ForAtlantas police force, this includes:placement of job announcements in

national trade publications, militarytrade publications, theAtlantaJournal Constitution and numerousother state newspapers, gay andlesbian publications, variousHispanic publications, and minoritystudent job publications; internetadvertising; a streaming video on theAtlanta Police Department website;local radio station ads; and postingsat sports arenas, college and

university employment centers andlocal church fairs.

3. Hiring Reform

Case by Case Review of DrivingViolations and Bad Credit of

Applicants: The APD noticed thatmany young applicants wereineligible for employment because ofpast driving violations or poor credit.

In many cases, these past problemswere not related to the applicantspotential to be a police officer.Consequently, the department hasbegun to scrutinize these cases morecarefully and is accepting thoseapplicants whose credit and drivingviolations are minor and reparable.

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In addition, APD recruiters go tohigh schools to talk with youth aboutthe importance of maintaining goodcredit and clean criminal records andthe possible negative effects these

can have on future employmentopportunities, whether in lawenforcement or elsewhere.

Making the Grade - EvaluatingPerformance Requirements: TheAPD made changes to its minimumpassing requirements for recruitsafter it found that one requirementdisproportionately affected blackcandidates while others

disproportionately affected womencandidates. When Chief Penningtonlearned that over two years, roughly1,000 applicants, most of whomwere minority, failed to pass therecruiting requirements he askedwhy. Many, it turned out, wereeliminated because of scores on theAPD psychometric test. ChiefPennington learned that the AtlantaPolice Department was using a

minimum passing score of 80, whilethe Georgia Peace Officer Standardsand Training Council (P.O.S.T.Council) set the state passing score at70.1 After lowering the passingscore to 75, still higher than thestatewide average, the departmentinvited all minority applicants toreapply. The result was that manymore passed the minimumrequirements and qualified asrecruits. Similarly, when ChiefPennington asked for data on thereasons why women candidates werebeing eliminated as recruits, he

1 P.O.S.T. administers the regulatory process, sets thestandards for training and certification, and providesessential technical assistance to the law enforcementcommunity in Georgia.

learned that many could not pass thestanding jump test, wherebycandidates must jump a minimum of16 inches from a standing position.With women recruits going through

physical conditioning at theAcademy, this requirement seemedunnecessary, and the minimumpassing height was reduced to 12inches. Previously, whenPennington was Chief of the NewOrleans Police Department, hediscovered that women candidateshad difficulty handling theDepartments standard issue .40-caliber pistols. The Department

switched to a type of pistol that fit asmaller hand, giving candidates achoice of which firearm to use. Inboth Atlanta and New Orleans, thesechanges resulted in increased womencandidates, broadening the pool ofpotential women officers.

4. Long Term Recruiting Efforts

Youth Outreach and Employment:

With assistance from the AtlantaWorkforce Development Agency(AWDA), the APD recruits minorityhigh school students for summeremployment. In the summer of2005, 14 tenth and eleventh gradestudents worked 20 hours per weekat $8-10 per hour in variouscapacities. Chief Pennington expectsto add 20 more students in thesummer of 2006. These students arerecruited both by the AWDA andmembers of the Police AthleticLeague.

The Police Athletic League: Thisprogram provides athletic activitiesfor youth from low-incomecommunities of color in Atlanta.

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Intramural sports such as golf,football and baseball are supervisedby members of the Atlanta PoliceDepartment. According to ChiefPennington, this allows Atlanta

youth to get to know police officersin a positive context. In addition, itprovides the opportunity for policeofficers to develop mentor orcoaching relationships with theyouth.

As demonstrated by the Atlanta PoliceDepartment, a comprehensive, creativecampaign to increase diversity is possible toimplement. While the Atlanta police

department may devote more resources thanothers to support its recruiting efforts, it isclear that money is not the only drivingforce behind innovative recruitment. Likethe Providence and Warwick policedepartments, the Atlanta Police Departmenthas strong leadership that prioritizesdiversity, a supportive staff that works hardto implement this vision and solidpartnerships with various city andcommunity agencies.

Statewide Pictures of the Diversity

Challenge: Kentucky and Rhode Island

To illustrate how diversity can be advancedon a statewide basis, researchers at theKennedy School of Government started byexamining the extent of diversity among thepolice departments in one state, RhodeIsland. The Kentucky Commission onHuman Rights recently conducted similarwork in its state.

The Diversity Challenge in Rhode Island

Police Departments

Researchers surveyed all 38 Rhode Islandpolice departments about: the current racial,

ethnic and gender make up of eachdepartment; current recruiting policies andprocedures for each department; andwhether each department has any type ofinitiative to increase diversity. Half of the

departments responded to the survey.

In most states, most police departments arequite small, and issues of diversity generallydo not receive much attention. But thestatewide picture is often dominated by thesum of these many small departments.Diversifying small departments is necessaryto improve the statewide picture. This isevident in Rhode Island, where 18 policedepartments outside of Providence employ

1,020 officers, of whom more than 96percent are white. The median size of these18 police agencies is 40 officers.

As seen in the below table, racial, ethnic andgender diversity is a considerable challengefor Rhode Island police departments. Of the19 departments that responded to the survey,10 are comprised entirely of white officersand 15 are comprised of less than 5 percentminority officers.

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RACE, ETHNICITY AND GENDER OF SWORN OFFICERES IN SELECTED RHODE ISLAND POLICE DEPARTWHITE POPULATIONPoliceDepartment

TotalNumberof SwornOfficers

PercentWhiteOfficers

PercentWhitePopulation

PercentAfricanAmericanOfficers

PercentAsianOfficers

PercentHispanicOfficers

PercenNativeOffice

Bristol 40 100% 96.8% 0% 0% 0% 0% Burriville 25 100% Unknown 0% 0% 0% 0%

Coventry 57 98.25% 95.5% 0% 0% 1.75% 0%

Cranston 151 96.04% 89.2% 1.3% 1.3% 1.3% .06%

Cumberland 62 100% 96.7% 0% 0% 0% 0% East Greenwich 34 100% 95.6% 0% 0% 0%

Hopkinton 16 100% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Middletown 38 Unknown2

89.1% Unknown Unknown Unknown Unkno

New Shoreham 4 100% 97.8% 0% 0% 0% 0%

North Providence 71 95.8% 92% 2.8% 0% 1.4% 0%

North Smithfield 22 100% 98.3% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Pawtucket 147 92.51% 75.4% 4.08% 0.68% 2.72% 0%

Providence 491 80.3% 54.5% 9.6% 2.6% 7.3% 0.2% Scituate 18 100% 98.1% 0% 0% 0% 0%

South Kingstown 54 96.3% 91.1% 0% 1.85% 1.85% 0% Tiverton 28 100% 98% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Warwick 180 94% 95.2% 1.1% 2.7%4

2.2% 0%

West Greenwich 11 100% 97.7% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Woonsocket 100 98% 83.1% 1% 1% 0%

2 This department responded that police officers are not required to list their race or ethnicity at the time of hiring and thus saibreakdown of officers by race and ethnicity.

3 This department responded that police officers are not required to list their race or ethnicity at the time of hiring and thus saibreakdown of officers by race and ethnicity.

4 This category was marked as other.

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Police Force Diversity in Kentucky

In January 2006, theKentucky Commissionon Human Rightspublished a study,Promoting Law Enforcement Diversity,A

Demographic Survey of Police and SheriffDepartments, which points to the low levelof police force diversity in Kentucky. Thestudy featured a voluntary survey sent to344 police departments in the state, of which148 (43 percent) were returned completed.The findings were dismal: only 32 percentof all responding police and sheriffdepartments employ African Americanofficers, and many of these departmentsemploy only one black officer. Only 10

percent of the responding agencies employHispanic or Latino officers. Womenaccount for just nine percent of officersamong responding agencies.

Researchers found the smallest, mostly ruraldepartments, which employ one to fiveemployees, are almost entirely white andmale. The study notes that while thesecommunities have small minoritypopulations, that is no reason to dissuademinority recruitment and retention.Persons transiting these communities willrepresent the statewide diversity found inKentucky. The distinct absence ofminorities on these forces poses a specialchallenge to have all people feel welcomeanywhere they travel within the state.

Other points emphasized in the Kentuckyreport are the need to cultivate cross-culturalcompetency among law enforcementagencies, and the value of foreign languageskills for officers, who must often interactwith populations with limited Englishproficiency.

The Kentucky Commission on HumanRights plans to monitor efforts to improverecruitment and retention and conduct a

follow-up survey in two years.5 TheKentucky study offers a model for otherhuman rights commissions to pursue inorder to promote diversity among lawenforcement agencies in their jurisdictions.

Diversity Strategies and Accreditation: Is

There a Link?

Among the 19 Rhode Island policedepartments that responded to our survey,we found that the departments with the mostcreative strategies were those that werenationally accredited by the Commission onAccreditation for Law EnforcementAgencies (CALEA). CALEA is an

accreditation authority developed by jointefforts of the nations major executive lawenforcement authorities.6 The centerpieceof the accreditation process is a body ofprofessional standards to be used all types oflaw enforcement agencies, regardless ofsize, geographic location or functionalresponsibilities.

With several notable exceptions, in moststates, relatively few police departments areaccredited. Undeniably, achieving andmaintaining accreditation requiressubstantial commitments of time andresources. Also, implementation ofprogressive recruitment strategies does notguarantee successful force diversification.However, for most departments outsidemajor metropolitan areas, without suchstrategies in place there is little chance toachieve diversity. Accreditation arguably

5

See Promoting Law Enforcement Diversity, ADemographic Survey of Police and SheriffDepartments, January 2006. http://kchr.ky.gov/pdf/1-25-06%20Police%20Demographics.pdf6 International Association of Chiefs of Police(IACP), National Organization of Black LawEnforcement Executives (NOBLE), NationalSheriffs Association (NSA) and Police ExecutiveResearch Forum (PERF).

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http://www.state.ky.us/agencies2/kchr/pdf/1-25-06%20Police%20Demographics.pdfhttp://kchr.ky.gov/pdf/1-25-06%20Police%20Demographics.pdfhttp://kchr.ky.gov/pdf/1-25-06%20Police%20Demographics.pdfhttp://kchr.ky.gov/pdf/1-25-06%20Police%20Demographics.pdfhttp://kchr.ky.gov/pdf/1-25-06%20Police%20Demographics.pdfhttp://www.state.ky.us/agencies2/kchr/pdf/1-25-06%20Police%20Demographics.pdf


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produces significant benefits for individualdepartments; implementation of robustdiversity initiatives is just one. Humanrights commissions and other civicorganizations might want to encourage

police departments to pursue accreditation,and to seek state funding to assist in theprocess.

The Bottom Line

Human Rights and Human RelationsCommissions, along with other officials andcommunity groups, can work with policedepartments to analyze the gaps in current

recruitment efforts and to develop newapproaches. Recruitment efforts shouldstrive toward building police forces whosemembers reflect the diversity of the widersociety, even in overwhelmingly

homogenous communities. A fundamentalstarting point is gathering the data to findout where you are losing women andminority candidates disproportionately towhite male candidates. This informationwill form the basis of an informed, strategicrecruiting effort. To gauge success, theinformation should be collected andreviewed periodically as new programs areput into place.

About the ProjectThe Kennedy School of Governments Executive Session on Human Rights Commissions and Criminal

Justice convenes human rights, civil rights and police leaders from across the United States in a series ofdiscussions about how to expand the role of human rights and human relations commissions in addressing issues ofdiscrimination in U.S. criminal justice systems. In addition, the project aims to strengthen the ways that state andlocal governments respond to violations of the rights of people involved with the criminal justice system by

documenting innovative work of individual commissions and conducting research on emerging practices.Human rights commissionsin some cases known as human relations or community relations commissions

have various levels of authority to enforce civil rights laws and human rights standards, particularly those prohibitingdiscrimination and promising equal justice. Many also actively work to reduce and defuse inter-group conflict.

Human rights violations in the criminal justice context can take many forms. Bias crimes, and failure of lawenforcement to investigate them; police mistreatment of minority groups, including racial profiling or the use ofexcessive force; and systematic failure to recruit minorities into law enforcement agencies: all of these forms ofdiscrimination not only harm individuals directly involved but also victimize whole groups of people, strainingcommunities sometimes to the breaking point.

The Executive Session, which runs from January 2006 through August 2008, employs a combination ofrigorous discussion, empirical research, practical innovation and professional mobilization to expand the work of thecommissions. Harvard faculty and staff facilitate the groups discussion and research. The project draws inspirationfrom the work of human rights commissions and ombudsmen around the globe. However, the focus of the programremains domestic, filling a peculiarly American gap in the available institutional mechanisms for redressing humanrights violations related to crime and justice.

Conceived and administered by the Kennedy Schools Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management,the project is funded by the JEHT Foundation.

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Members of The Executive Session onHuman Rights Commissions and Criminal Justice

Angela Arboleda, Associate Director for Criminal Justice Policy, National Council of La RazaAnthony Batts, Chief of the Long Beach, California Police DepartmentLarry Bagneris, Executive Director of the City of New Orleans Human Relations CommissionMarea Beeman, Senior Research Associate, Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, John F. KennedySchool of Government, Harvard UniversityJacqueline Bhabha, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law SchoolPatricia L. Gatling, Chair/Commissioner of the New York City Human Rights Commission

Ryan Goodman, J. Sinclair Armstrong Assistant Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law,Harvard Law SchoolReverend Doctor Markel Hutchins, Atlanta, GeorgiaYvonne J. Johnson, City Council Member At Large in Greensboro, North CarolinaNorman G. Orodenker, Chair of the Governor's Commission on Prejudice and Bias in Rhode Island and Chair of theUnited States Civil Rights Advisory Commission for Rhode IslandRichard J. Pennington, Chief of the Atlanta, Georgia Police DepartmentMindy Jane Roseman, Academic Director, Human Rights Program, Harvard Law SchoolKenneth L. Saunders, Director of the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights

Christopher Stone, Guggenheim Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice, John F. Kennedy School of

Government, Harvard UniversityJames L. Stowe, Executive Director of the City of Columbus Community Relations Commission

Robin S. Toma, Executive Director of the Commission on Human Relations for Los Angeles County

About the Series

Executive Session Papers: Human Rights Commissions and the Criminal Justice System is a series of papers andcase studies examining ways to expand the role of human rights and human relations commissions in addressing

issues of discrimination in U.S. criminal justice systems.

Papers in the Series

HRC #1: Building Trust After a Police Shooting: Community Intervention Teams in Columbus, Ohio(August 2006)

HRC #2: Increasing Diversity in Police Departments: Strategies and Tools for Human Rights Commissions andOthers(October 2006)

The complete series is available online at www.hrccj.org

Program in Criminal Justice Policy and ManagementJohn F. Kennedy School of Government

Harvard University79 John F. Kennedy Street

Cambridge, MA 02138Phone: 617.495.5188

Fax: [email protected]

www.ksg.harvard.edu/criminaljustice

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