Summary Of The Task Force On 21st Century Policing

Police brutality and office involved shootings have sparked national debate and created a strain between police officers and citizens. Recently, there have been more home videos that display acts of aggression by police officers. These police officers often use excessive forces or a condescending tone towards people of color which is why there needs to be a better way to mend police and civilian relationship. People should be able to trust the police in their communities rather than fear them.

Recently, it has been brought up that there is still institutional racism within the Police force, this, as well as many other reasons such as negative stereotyping, informal bias and assumptions from ethnic minority groups themselves are reasons why people from minority groups are less inclined to join. The Police have introduced a number of ways to try and create a more diverse workforce. Some of these methods include, improving the data collected on the age,

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).

Policing today consists of three eras. These three eras have adapted and built off one another through history (Parr, 2014). The first era started around 1840 to 1930, and is known as the Political Era. The second Era is known as the Reform Era and lasted from 1930 to 1970. The last era is called the Community-Problem Solving Era and is still being adapted and used today. The Political Era emphasizes on meeting the needs of politicians. The police were given power through the local government and the community had very little say in what happened. The police and politicians worked together to control the city and neighborhoods (Palmiotto, 2000). This was often referred to as a ward. The ward politician controlled all the police in their neighborhood. The police officers tasks included not only crime prevention and order but a lot of social service activities that involved their neighborhoods. The officers resembled the ethnic backgrounds of the neighborhoods they lived and worked in and performed their patrols gaining trust from their community (Palmiotto, 2000). This allowed positive integration of police officers leading to more public service, and the trust of the officers to stop crime when is starts.

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.

policies that are currently in place to reduce tension between police officers and the minority groups that they serveLaw enforcement officers and the community have been disconnected. Violence and brutality of any kind, particularly at the hands of the police who here to protect and serve our communities. When Ferguson, Missouri exploded after the police shot an unarmed black teenager, the tension between the community and its protectors was laid bare. Ferguson is not the first and certainly not the last community forced to bridge that chasm. In South Carolina a policeman shot an unarmed black male who was stopped for a seat belt violation. The cop asked the male for ID, who then reached under his seat to retrieve his wallet, but was shot in the leg by the cop before he could take out his ID. When the body cam video was reviewed it shows that the trigger happy cop probably was in fear of his life, however it is also obvious that the cop shouldn’t have felt threaten as the behavior of the black male involved nothing unusual. Many would say if the driver was white the cop would have not reacted the way he did.

The task force has several recommendation for how to build up trust and legitimacy. The first recommendation calls for police to change their mindset. Police need to not be seen as an occupying force. A citizen, Rufus Scales, who was affected by the racial profiling stated in the New York Times article that “whenever one of them is near, I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t feel safe.” As a member of the community he does not view the police a guardian but that they are against him. To fix this issue the police need to adopt a guardian mindset.

Policing has changed since 9/11. They wanted different ways to detect terrorist actions and criminal acts. So community policing was implemented. The government has provided money and has been supportive in agencies efforts to participate in community policing. “For example, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), a branch of the Department of Justice, provide funding to local police agencies to hire 100,000 new community policing officers in the 1990s” (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000 as cited in Chappell, 2009, 6).

Although the questionnaire and interview processes are useful in gaining a better understanding of the cultural competence of law enforcement agencies, they are not helpful in improving the cultural competency of those agencies. This is where instituting mandatory cultural competency training comes into play. For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission proposed steps and recommendations to increase cultural competency and one of those steps was to “develop and deploy effective EEO and diversity/inclusion training for different state and local law enforcement audiences, including department leadership, human resources, and hiring officials, union leadership, and individual officers.” (Yang, 2015). While this recommendation pertains to hiring practices, it would also be very beneficial for law enforcement agencies to have trainings. Cultural competency training is important and would greatly improve relations between law enforcement and the community.

The Michale Brown shooting has forever changed policing in the United States much like the Rodney King beating by the LAPD in 1991. History will show that the death of Michael Brown will prove to have longer and more dramatic influence on how law enforcement officers do their job than the Rodney King incident. The reasons for this are many, to mention a few, society has become more sensitive and less tolerant of police misconduct weather the misconduct is real or perceived. The public is also better informed because of the speed that the modern news media, and social media, are able to disseminate pictures, video and other information. Facebook has probably had a greater affect on the way law enforcement agencies operate that any high profile

Different races, sexual orientations, and genders are all encompassed by a single word, diversity. Diversity is defined as a variety or range of different things. Organizations, employers, and companies are looking to include minorities and multiculturalism into the work place in order to become more diverse. In the past decades the police services have made significant efforts to achieve a status as an employer of choice and increase the recruitment of minorities. Police services in Canada and around the world are starting to respond to the realities of diversity in the societies which they live. By using laws, policies and mandates employers are starting to get an accurate depiction of their community representations. Under and over-policing methods by police against minorities is one of the few issues minorities face due to lack of diversity in the police service.

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)

Police brutality is not a new subject. It has been around for numerous years, and like most issues, has resurfaced to the public’s eyes. The recent events brought up the question: Does there need to be a reform in the system in the police system? In this year alone, there have been countless cases of individuals being harmed or even killed by police officers for reasons that continuously are not explained. What has people more attentive to this injustice are statistics showing that most victims in these police attacks happen to be African Americans and other minorities.

Since the founding of this country, to the wild west, and up to the present, the agenda of the policing bodies have been clear: to uphold and enforce the laws of our society. Of course the way they do this today had undergone changes from the first police forces of early America, law enforcement has seen trends come and go.

The president’s task force on twenty first century policing first pillar is to build trust and legitimacy. If the GPD is as this report is claiming are committing acts of racial profiling then they are not going to build trust and legitimacy in their community. If there is low trust and legitimacy within the community then they are not an accountable organization. Law enforcement are unable to build trust if force is used to control the community. Racial profiling is a controlling the minority community through the disproportionate amount of blacks are getting pulled over and getting tickets or other legal troubles. The Greensboro Police department needs to try and build trust and legitimacy within the black community. These recommendations