Posted on 10/06/2016 5:26:38 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released a comprehensive report Wednesday examining law enforcement hiring, recruitment, and retention policies with the aim of increasing diversity in police departments.
The report--"Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement"--highlighted barriers to diversity within police departments, such as “the use of criminal background checks” which the researchers found “is likely to disproportionately impact racial minority applicants.”
The report also found that U.S. citizenship requirements “may prevent a considerable number of racial and ethnic minorities – many of whom have valuable foreign language skills – from being hired by law enforcement agencies.”
The report opened with an analysis of EEOC labor force data, which “found that African-American, Latino, and Asian-American police officers were underrepresented relative to the local area population in a significant number of the departments analyzed. Using a statistical test of underrepresentation, the researchers found that within their sample, African Americans were underrepresented in 60 percent of the departments, Latinos were underrepresented in 41 percent, and Asian Americans were underrepresented in 31 percent.”
The use of criminal background checks, the report noted,
"Researchers and practitioners," the report said, "have also highlighted that the use of criminal background checks, which are a regular part of the screening process for many agencies, is likely to disproportionately impact racial minority applicants since, for a variety of reasons, individuals from those communities are more likely to have contact with the criminal justice system.
"While law enforcement agencies are undeniably justified in carefully vetting and investigating potential hires,” the report said, "excluding applicants regardless of the nature of the underlying offense, or how much time has passed since an offense occurred, or without any consideration of whether the candidate has changed in the intervening period, can be a significant – and unwarranted – barrier.”
The report also argued that residency and citizenship requirements can limit underrepresented communities’ presence in law enforcement.
“While Federal law allows law enforcement agencies to impose a citizenship requirement where it is authorized by state or local law,” the report said, “this requirement may prevent a considerable number of racial and ethnic minorities – many of whom have valuable foreign language skills – from being hired by law enforcement agencies.”
“Allowing work-authorized non-U.S. citizens to work in state and local law enforcement, particularly in jurisdictions with large immigrant populations, can enable agencies to more closely represent the diversity of their community,” the report later added. “Especially as agencies work to serve communities with a large percentage of limited English proficient (LEP) residents, excluding officers who are not U.S. citizens may significantly limit the number of applicants who speak languages other than English.”
The report went on to highlight barriers to the LGBT community’s representation in law enforcement saying, “individuals from LGBT communities have identified issues such as anti-LGBT discrimination and harassment and insensitivity towards the needs of officers undergoing a gender transition as obstacles to considering careers in certain law enforcement agencies.”
Researchers also found that “women and LGBT individuals who have encountered bias in their interactions with police may also have reservations about joining law enforcement.”
On the hiring of women in law enforcement, according to the report, “research has shown that physical tests may have a significant and unnecessary impact on female applicants when they lack a corresponding benefit or job-related need.
“If these tests are administered in a manner that overemphasizes physical strength, fail to account for improvements that will result from training, or fail to account for inherent physiological differences between men and women, they may not be selecting for what is actually necessary on the job or is similarly required for the effective absorption of necessary law enforcement training, and consequently may screen out otherwise qualified women,” the report stated.
In its appendix on Title VII enforcement, the report noted that “agencies frequently rely on written tests, oral interviews, physical tests, background checks, and other processes to screen applicants.”
“These processes may violate the law if they disproportionately screen out applicants from protected classes and are not job-related and consistent with business necessity,” it warned. “This holds true even if the screens were not intended to discriminate. Even if such practices are job-related and consistent with business necessity, an employer will still be liable under Title VII if it failed to use an alternative employment practice with a less severe impact that serves its legitimate employment needs.”
“Ensuring that law enforcement agencies represent the diversity of the communities they serve can help restore trust and improve policing,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
“Building on innovative and creative strategies implemented by law enforcement around the country, our report highlights how agencies are bridging divides and creating lasting results. We hope agencies utilize this resource as they strive to strengthen their diversity and we look forward to engaging with law enforcement on this critical topic over the coming months,” she added.
I wonder if Obama would consider firing all USA cops and hiring ONLY United Nations cops.
The blue helmets would make a nice target.
I won’t follow orders from someone from a foreign country regardless of what uniform they put on them.
“...Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)....”
I assume that when people refer to “institutional stupidity” they are referring to these two.
What is truly disturbing about this report is that the DOJ is absolutely committed to making it a reality and this has been put forth by the Ferguson Commission and BLM.
To summarize, this report says that police have to dumb down their testing, psychological and physical requirements, do away with educational requirements, promote people who have not earned it and allow those with criminal history to become police officers.
All to achieve some notion of diversity.
Are we talking about true diversity, true representation of the community or some narrow definition of such?
I truly hope that Mr. Trump becomes president for our nation’s sake. He needs to come in and clean the DOJ den of vipers out and put us back on a law and order footing rather than some social justice warrior wet dream.
The sad thing is that this isn’t satire. This is an organization that seeks the destruction of a civil society and the annihilation of individual rights of peaceful citizens.
WTF?
Many years ago I worked for a company that did Police and Fire screenings for new hires. We contracted with over 70 suburban departments of a large city. It was a 8 hour process for the applicants. The first part of the day they would go through a written psychological testing program with a assessment interview with a Psychologist. Then in the afternoon they would take an in-depth polygraph examination.
Out of ten applicants we would consider it a good day if we could get 4 through the process that we could recommend. Many of the ones that were rejected would have been a danger to themselves or to the community. The question on the polygraph test that got the most bizarre answers was “Have you ever committed a crime that if the police would have known about you would have been arrested?” That knocked a lot out that didn’t have any arrest record...going on just the arrest record would have missed a lot of bad applicants...ones you wouldn’t have wanted to give a gun to. Minorities were definitely hard to qualify.
Absolutely true. It would be worse than what’s happening in Germany with the cops where the criminals are allowed to break the law. Under this scenario the cops would join in.
Look up antoinette Frank and Kevin Gaines...Both diversity cops and both “unhinged”.....Frank murdered two people. white male partner Asian business owner..Gaines had road rage problems and he got into a road rage altercation with off duty white cop named Frank Lyga......
These people are absolutely nuts.
...The SOB wants foreign cops walking the streets of America to take revenge on whitey....
Most likely he wants blue helmets.
Nonsense now is thought to be sense.
I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It is close to losing all hope for the United States of America!
Thanks to Hussein, Hillary, Bill, GOPe, FOX, Saul, Karl, Mao, Fidel, Bill Ayers, the Bushes, CFR, NFL, NBA, ESPN, Shep, Jeb, Moochelle, and anyone that I have not mentioned that is also a treasonous traitor!
Sure lower the standards and install former felons as police officers then watch anarchy ensue. The lefties have always wanted America to become a lawless nation. Makes their pillaging and plundering for whatever cause they can dream up at any given moment.
And, I am talking about white people!
Bring on the EEOC and DOJ to screw us with their “diversity” crap, and we are really up Shit’s Creek.
First, remove criminality and allegiance to foreign governments as a disqualifier from being an American law enforcement officer.
Next, make criminality and allegiance to foreign governments a underrepresented characteristic requiring affirmative action in law enforcement hiring.
Requiring LEOs to not be convicts is racist!
So we have to have diversity on the police force, but we can’t hire blacks because they can’t pass CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS, and we can’t hire Hispanics because they are CRIMINAL TRESSPASSERS, so we need to change things so we can hire CRIMINALS to be POLICE. Did someone actually read this after they wrote it?
Which then gives them the right to shoot you down like a dog.
There are certain jobs that have certain minimum qualification standards, police officer being one of them. You don’t, because you CAN’T, compromise those standards. Having a cop with a criminal record should be a “no go” proposition for obvious reasons. On the citizenship issue, don’t you want people who are completely invested in their communities?
If this happens to reduce diversity now, so what? Educate people who ARE citizens and minorities to NOT break the law, and to thereby open up another door to a worthwhile and good-paying job. If people listen, a diverse police force is not more than 8-10 years away. Better yet, it will have been EARNED, not handed over, resulting in justified pride of achievement.
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