Name Sydney Reid Essays (830 words) - Education,

Name: Sydney Reid College ID: 0591992 Thomas Edison State University General AOJ-101 Section no.: Writing Assignment #1 Semester and year: May 2017 The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Statistics issued the results of a special survey administered to a nationally representative sample of agencies that participated in the 2008 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies. Approximately 3,000 general purpose agencies were sampled, including all agencies employing 100 or more full-time sworn officers and a systematic random sample of smaller agencies. The report shows that there were only 36% of the agencies who targeted applicants with previous law enforcement experience and a much smaller percentage of the agencies focused on a more diverse recruitment approach and were able to hire 17% military veterans, 16% multilingual, and 14% 4-year college graduates. The efforts are not enough to ensure a more diverse hiring procedure and there can be various creative strategies that can be implemented to promote diversity in the local police workforce. In an Executive Session Paper on Increasing Diversity in Police Departments (Kasdan, 2006), Kasdan suggests the following creative strategies to help in the recruitment and retention of a diverse police department workforce: Partnership and collaborations, outreach/community programs, reform the hiring process and long-term efforts in recruitment. 1. Partnership and Collaborations. Every community has some kind of workforce development agency that facilitates training programs to help provide employment to their citizens. The police force can partner with these agencies, provide training and help applicants pass the physical abilities and other tests. The police department can also partner with student researchers to learn more about how they can recruit and retain minority police officers. Launching a new recruitment campaign to focus on attracting women and minority candidates for police jobs is also an effective way of increasing diversity in the workforce. 2. Outreach/Community Programs. Police officers can conduct out-of-town recruitment in accordance to demographics analysis reports that show which areas they can find more potential recruits. In Atlanta, there has been a targeted recruitment of the Latino community by advertising the vacancies in Spanish newspapers, job fairs and through posters and flyers. 3. Reform the Hiring Process. One way to change or improve the hiring process is to conduct a case by case review of driving violations or other requirements that disqualify potential police officer applicants but may not be necessary in the job recruitment process. The police department can also evaluate its performance requirements and change them to encourage minority applicants or to remove those requirements that disproportionately affect them. 4. Long-term Efforts in Recruitment. The police department can conduct youth outreach programs to offer summer employment to minority high school students. This will also be a way of training them into police force in the future. They can also implement programs that provide athletic activities for youth from families and communities with low income or different race.Creative campaign, aggressive advertising, community involvement, partnership and collaboration -- they can greatly improve diversity in the recruitment and retention of local police officers.Furthermore, to assess if a police department is doing its best to promote diversity, they can consider answering the following: Recruit people from outside of the state as different demographics and job markets promote diversity of applicants Evaluate the factors affecting the failure of minority and female applicants to successfully get the job. Compare and evaluate the state's standards for psychometric exams or other requirements with other states and there may be standards higher in your state than in theirs. Implement a long-term strategy to help minority get the job by mentoring them while they are young and eventually encourage them to become a part of the police department. Fix negative perceptions that the minority thinks of the way recruitment is being conducted through proactive policing system that allows the police offers to build relationships with them in the field. Go out to find the applicants and start encouraging them while they are still young. Encourage them to train every summer so that it won't be difficult to successfully pass the actual training when they are in the right age. Provid e mentors to minority officers and emphasize a culture of supportive collaboration within the team members. Minority police