Police departments should prioritize the recruitment, hiring, and retention of community serviceminded officers
IntroductionPart 1Part 2Recommended Best Practices
Introduction
Police departments are, in many communities, the “public face of local government.”[i]As such, they should reflect the communities they serve and take a community-centered approach to their work — one that embeds the values and voices of all community members into department policy and practice.[ii]Doing so builds community trust and confidence in the vital work of law enforcement. Indeed, a diverse workforce can increase departments’ cultural competency and help foster positive police-community relationships.
Despite some progress, these goals have yet to be met. The nation’s police force remains predominantly White, male, and heteronormative.[iii]Community-centered approaches, meanwhile, are gaining traction but have yet to be fully integrated into all departments across the nation — and sometimes, they face resistance from recalcitrant officers and departments.[iv]
[i]U.S. Dep’t of Justice & Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n, Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement 7 (2016) [hereinafter Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement], https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/file/900761/download.
[ii]The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing 16 (2015) [hereinafter the President’s Task Force Report],https://cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/taskforce_finalreport.pdf.
[iii]Yamiche Alcindor & Nick Penzenstadler, Police Redouble Efforts to Recruit Diverse Officers, USA Today, Jan. 21, 2015, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/21/police-redoubling-efforts-to-recruit-diverse-officers/21574081/.
[iv]See, e.g.,Pat Pratt, Professor: Community Policing Requires Change in Attitude, Columbia Daily Tribune (Nov. 23, 2018 at 6:37 PM), https://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20181123/professor-community-policing-requires-change-in-attitude (describing officers’ opposition to community policing and their view that it is not “true policing”).
Attracting and Retaining Officers
Officers who reflect the values of the department and the community at large are more likely to practice fair and effective policing practices.[i]Residents of communities with high levels of serious crime expect police to respond and investigate. But many communities, especially those of color, are overpoliced and subject to hyper-enforcement of low-level offenses, a phenomenon borne out by law enforcement statistics.[ii](For more detail, see Chapters 2 and 3.)
To alleviate these concerns, officers should build and maintain strong and positive relationships with communities; that way, residents will feel comfortable calling the police when a crime occurs. To cultivate strong police-community ties, departments should invest in high-quality officers who can meaningfully engage with community members and build relationships based on trust.
Over the past decade, departments have found it increasingly difficult to recruit high-quality candidates because of higher competition with the private sector and increasingly negative views of policing.[iii]Departments also have difficulty retaining young and new officers. This is particularly true of women and officers of color, who leave the profession in disproportionate numbers (and often in fewer than five years).[iv]Low retention rates strain staffing levels, which lowers morale.[v]
To retain a diverse staff of committed, high-performing officers, departments should foster employee engagement (i.e., ensuring employees feel absorbed in and positive and enthusiastic about their work and work environment).
Departments can do so by promoting procedural justice. Officers are more likely to stay when they believe that (1) they do work that matters to their department and the community they serve; (2) they have ample opportunities to provide meaningful input about their work; and (3) they are treated fairly by their peers, superiors, and the department as a whole. Officers who feel this way “have a deeper connection to the agency’s mission and vision” and are“more willing to go the extra mile for the agency.”[vi]Moreover, when departments model fair and just treatment, officers replicate these principles in their relationships with communities.[vii]
[i]Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement, supranote 1, at ii.
[ii]See, e.g., The Sentencing Project, Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System, I & II, http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Black-Lives-Matter.pdf.
[iii]SeeICMA & Vera Institute, The Model Police Officer: Recruitment, Training, and Community Engagement 4 (Sept. 2018) [hereinafter The Model Police Officer], https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/the-model-police-officer/legacy_downloads/19-009-Model-Police-Officer-Survey-Report_web.pdf (noting that “competition with the private sector, as well as societal changes in the perception of policing and public service generally” may be decreasing the supply of recruits.); Tom Jackman, Who wants to be a police officer? Job applications plummet at most U.S. departments, Wash. Post (Dec. 4, 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2018/12/04/who-wants-be-police-officer-job-applications-plummet-most-us-departments/?utm_term=.ec6acc10403a(attributing the recent decline in applications to “a diminished perception in policing” and healthy economy that officers better salaries in the private sector).
[iv]SeeJackman, supranote 8 (citing a survey that found 40 percent of officers voluntarily left the force in under five years); Jeremy M. Wilson, et al., RAND Center on Quality Policing, Police Recruitment and Retention for the New Millennium: The Slate of Knowledge 35 (2010), https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG959.pdf(citing research suggesting that young people and new officers, as well as women and minorities, leave policing in disproportionate numbers; for example, nearly two-thirds of officers who left the Cincinnati Police Department had served for fewer than five years).
[v]Steven Hale, FOP Survey Finds Low Morale, Doubts About Policing Strategies Among Nashville Cops, Nashville Scene (Dec. 5, 2018 11 AM), https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pith-in-the-wind/article/21035392/fop-survey-finds-low-morale-doubts-about-policing-strategies-among-nashville-cops (finding staffing levels as a reason for low morale).
[vi]U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Cmty. Oriented Policing Servs., Organizational Change through Decision Making and Policy: A New Procedural Justice Course for Managers and Supervisors (Apr. 2015), https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/04-2015/a_new_procedural_justice_course.asp.
[vii]SeeMaarten Van Craen & Wesley G. Skogan, Achieving Fairness in Policing: The Link Between Internal and External Procedural Justice, 20(1) Police Quarterly 3, 6 (2017),http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1098611116657818(“[T]he extent to which police officers’ behavior toward citizens is guided by the principles of neutrality, respect, voice, and accountability depends on the extent to which supervisors’ behavior toward their officers is characterized by these principles.”).
Best Practices in Recruitment, Hiring, Promotion, and Retention
Police departments should prioritize the recruitment, hiring, and retention of community service-minded officers. While departments should continue to use the regular mechanisms for recruiting and hiring, such as outreach and referrals, they should consider innovative ways to appeal to diverse communities that have traditionally been underrepresented in policing.
Improving police departments’ image and reputation through community policing and cultural awareness will help mend broken ties to communities of color and other marginalized groups. Departments should also create inclusive workplaces to retain high-quality employees. The following recommendations represent best practices in recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention.
Recommended Best Practices
Recommended
Best Practices
10.2 Seek community input when making decisions about hiring and resource allocation.
Departments need adequate staff to meet their many obligations: answering service calls, investigating serious crimes, responding to emergencies, and more. Officers in understaffed departments cannot carry out their missions or serve their communities well. They are often stretched thin and worked to the point of exhaustion, which is dangerous for officers and the public alike.
Uses of force are correlated with overtime. If an officerworked one additional hour of overtime in the prior week, the odds of a use-of-force incident in the following week increaseby 2.7 percent.[i]
[i]Justin Anderson, et al., King County Sheriff’s Office Overtime: Better Strategy Could Reduce Hidden Costs and Safety Risks, King County Auditor’s Office 30 (2017), https://www.kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/auditor/new-web-docs/2017/kcao-overtime-2017/kcao-overtime-2017.ashx?la=en.
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10.3 Develop recruitment plans that reflect departmental missions and community priorities.
To attract officers with skills, experiences, and attitudes that align with their department’s mission, leaders should develop recruitment plans that include specific goals and milestones. If recruitment plans reflect community input, departments will build community trust and make the profession more appealing. Leaders should use employee referral systems, because community-minded officers are likely to recruit like-minded candidates whom they know closely; engage in face-to-face outreach, because it personalizes and demystifies what can be an intimidating process; and prioritize recruiting people of color, women, and individuals from other backgrounds underrepresented in policing.
Read More10.4 Reevaluate hiring qualifications and testing.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment practices that have a disparate impact on people based on their race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy),[i]or national origin. Enacted in 1964, this law applies even to “facially neutral” practices, which are not discriminatory as written (i.e., on their face) but can be in practice.[ii]For hiring or promotions, departments should ensure their testing practices don’t exclude qualified applicants from underrepresented groups.
[i]Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n, What You Should Know About EEOC and the Enforcement Protections for LGBT Workers, https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/wysk/enforcement_protections_lgbt_workers.cfm#examples. (last visited Jan. 18, 2019). Title VII was amended with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978, which made it illegal to discriminate against a woman based on pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition. SeePub. L. 95-555, 92 Stat 2076 (1978) (now codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-(k)).
[ii]See42 U.S.C. § 2000e-(k); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 430 (1971).
Read More10.6 Implement transparent policies and practices that are centered on internal procedural jus-tice.
Internal procedural justice gives employees a sense of agency and value within departments because their input and feedback are considered in departmental decisions. This, in turn, creates a positive work environment with good morale, which is central to attracting high-quality candidates and grooming them to be the next generation of leaders. To promote internal procedural justice, departments should:
Make promotions systems transparent. Opaque promotions systems instill a sense of unfairness and inequity in police departments.[i]When officers don’t know how or why promotional decisions are made, they often end up resenting fellow officers and supervisors.[ii]
[i]See, e.g., U.S. Dep’t. Justice Civ. Rights Div. & U.S. Att’y’s Office N.D. Ill., Investigation of the Chi. Police
Dep’t 13, 129 (Jan. 13, 2017) [hereinafter Chi. Investigation],https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/925846/download(noting that the Chicago Police Department “[does] not effectively communicate the details of its promotions process to the rank-and-file, and does not provide sufficient transparency following promotional decisions to allay officer concerns.”).
[ii]See, e.g., id. at 129-34 (describing how the lack of transparency around promotional systems and decisions created a narrative among officers that the department “does not value good leadership, and that current leaders are unqualified to lead”).
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