Fire Department Pros Analysis

• Indirect discrimination: when you have a rule or policy that applies to everyone but disadvantages a person with a protected characteristic.

in an attempt to increase the diversity the fire service have introduced methods such as appointing an equality and diversity officer to the community who is there to discuss and talk to women and ethnic minority groups about the career opportunities they would encounter if they joined the fire service. The service has introduced a 10 year strategy which has a goal of improving the way the workers treat each other across all parts of the Service but also the effectiveness of the relationship that they have with the public. The strategy has 5 different areas which the service aims to work on to improve diversity.The first is Leadership and promoting inclusion where they want individuals to ‘undertake their role in promoting equality and diversity and ensure any practice or procedure they have responsibility for is effectively equality impact assessed’. The second is accountability which will include the workers making ‘evidence available to the public annually on improvements to service delivery and employment practice, including progress against the employment targets through its website’. The third area is Effective service delivery and community engagement. This aims to involve community and voluntary groups in policy development including members of minority ethnic, religious, disabled, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, men and women, and all age groups more within the work of the fire

The objective of this thesis is to provide comprehensive information to all stakeholders who have an interest in enhancing minority recruitment and selection. The goal of this thesis is to address law enforcement professionals about the importance of diversifying police agencies; more importantly, is to address the underrepresentation of Asian-American police officers and the challenges of recruiting potential candidates from Asian communities. Through community policing, mediation, trust building, collaboration with stakeholders, and cultural diversity training, law enforcement agencies will achieve its recruiting and diversity goals. Targeting Asian cultural events, partnering up with higher learning institutions, and sending mass emails regarding job opportunities to criminal justice majors could produce students’ interests and desires to pursue a career in law enforcement (Castaneda & Ridgeway, 2010). Recruitment issues and needs will be examined; moreover, the importance of evaluating implemented strategies must be followed up in order to monitor community changes or problems that may arise (Tangel, 2015).

Diversity in law enforcement has grown to become a hot topic within the law enforcement community. The demographic of society has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and with that law enforcement has been changing, but have they been changing enough? Different law enforcement agencies have their own ways of implementing diversity in their practices and procedures, some of them are better than others, but with issues that happen today it is important that they do something.

Ricci involved a promotional examination administered by New Haven, Connecticut to members of the New Haven Fire Department to identify those applicants who merited promotions. Knowing that promotional examinations have historically had a disparate-impact on minorities, the City hired a professional testing firm, Industrial/Organizational Solutions Inc. (“IOS”) to develop a racially-neutral

Today like never before organizations are hoping to fill their positions with a group of diverse law enforcement officers that mirrors the populaces they serve. As organizations search for officers who reflect their settings in which they serve in , they are additionally expanding their meanings of decent variety. From this point of view, assorted variety can incorporate race, ethnic gathering, religion, sexual preference, and age. Being a minority working in the law enforcement field can be very helpful for an agency however, that specific group may still go unrecognized. This paper will provide a brief review of the disguised minority achievements as it relates to the U.S. Marshals Service in the past. It will also be examined in

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces the federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or employee. An employer cannot discriminate due to a person’s color, religion, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, national origin, age (40 years or older), genetic information or disability. This applies to wages, harassment, training, benefits, hiring, and firing. EEOC’s role in any investigation of discrimination is to accurately and fairly take in the information of the charge and then make a finding. If the EEOC found that there was indeed a discriminating case then they will try to settle it. If the employer does not settle then the EEOC may file a lawsuit. (Overview.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is composed of over eighteen thousand employees. The hiring process is a long and arduous process, consumed with numerous steps. The most pivotal aspect of the hiring process is the background investigation on applicants. Background investigations are a crucial step to deciding if an applicant will be qualified for employment. Unfortunately, even qualified applicants are overlooked, and under qualified applicants are offered employment to meet discriminating hiring quotas. These hiring quotas are a result of a policy known as Affirmative Action.

* A review of three different recruitment methods that can be used, and when it is appropriate to use them.

To increase recruitment and improve retention of Chinese and SE Asian staff in all areas of the extended police family in both uniformed and non-uniformed roles.

Diversity recruitment is vital to any organization, especially that of a law enforcement agency. Many police departments across Missouri are struggling to maintain a workforce that is equally as diverse at the community it serves. According to The Police Chief magazine, one of the most effective recruitment techniques to achieve a diverse police force is to generate a positive perception of police within the community. (Pearsall & Kohlhepp, 2016)

The case Vasich, et al. v. The City Of Chicago, the current present day employers are being faced with the challenging task of change and to redevelop their HR strategies as both levels of government continue to enroll new and strict policies in promoting workplace diversity. The International Association of Women in Fire and Emergency Services is one of the organizations formed with an effort to invest more time and effort in increasing the number of women within the profession (Hogler, 2015).

There has been many controversies and attention towards the recruiting and hiring crisis in American law enforcement. Among the various problems that law enforcement agencies in America face, however, do not solely pertain to issues such as budgeting or manpower; but rather, it is the problem of recruiting qualified Asian-American applicants (Gaines & Kappeler, 2014). Policing in the United States has changed since the early days of American law enforcement. Although there have been opportunities for Asian-Americans to pursue a career in law enforcement over the last forty years, an existence of discrimination in the workplace regarding allocation of assignments, promotions, and recruitment still occurs (Matthies et al., 2012). That being said, law enforcement agencies in the United States must be culturally and racially diverse, to reflect the population of Asian-Americans in which they promised to protect and serve. It is important to have more Asian-American officers on a police force to improve relationships between law enforcement and Asian-American residents (Alcindor & Penzenstandler, 2015). Having more Asian-American officers on the police force could also help with cultural differences when responding to a call for service involving Asian immigrants (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2010). Asian-American officers can help solve crimes that might astound colleagues unfamiliar with various Asian dialects (Cao, 2011).

In May 2007, the Bush Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), based on discriminatory hiring practices for entry level firefighters. More specifically the lawsuit was in regards to the use of exams 7029 and 2043, had an unlawful and negative impact on the prospects of black and Hispanic applicants. In September of that year the Vulcan Society were allowed to intervene in the lawsuit with the objective of proving that these practices were a result of intentional discrimination. The ensuing legal battle would lead to major changes in NYFD’s hiring practices and get the ball rolling towards a more diverse department.

Discrimination in employment regarding sex, race, religion and age has been protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Disparate impact is often referred to as unintentional discrimination. This occurs when policies, practices, rules or other systems appear to be neutral but have an unbalanced impact on members of a protected class (EEO: General, 2016). The Fire Department has shown a disparate impact by presenting an entry exam which consisted of a series of essay questions that were made up by officers of the fire department. As the statistics show, the fire department is overwhelmingly white and male, and are the sons and nephews of former and current firefighters. This issue is that the questions were stored at the fire station and possibly given in advance to those whom were applying by the family members that currently worked there. Also, the minorities did poorly on these essay questions as a result of being educated in under-resourced schools in economically deprived neighborhoods. Cognitive ability and knowledge tests can disproportionally screen out non-white candidates and for this is the reason why I would not recommend this method to be used. I would also recommend to not use the word of mouth recruiting method as the disadvantages are: limited audience, the “word” spreads slowly, and tracking issues (Mooney, n.d.).