Washington, DC
United States
~ Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Thank you, Ron [Davis], for that introduction and for
inviting me to join you for today’s conversations on how to increase and
maintain diversity in our nation’s police and sheriff’s departments.
Echoing Neil’s earlier remarks on behalf of the
administration, I would like to begin by recognizing the COPS Office (Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services) for their tireless work in supporting the
implementation of the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st
Century Policing, including those focused on achieving diversity in law
enforcement recruitment. The COPS Office
has an extensive history of working with the field to advance public safety
through community policing, including resources that have provided practical
approaches for creating positive, productive relations with all members of the
multi-racial, multi-ethnic public.
And on behalf of the Attorney General (AG) and Deputy
Attorney General, I want to express deep gratitude and appreciation for the
incredibly hard work done by everyone in this room – law enforcement, community
leaders and advocates and civil rights organizations – to build lasting
collaborative relationships between local police and the public. We recognize your vital efforts to ensure
that all components of a community – including both the public and peace
officers – treat one another fairly and justly, and are invested in maintaining
public safety in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
And I’m sure that everyone here today recognizes the
importance of having a police department or sheriff’s office that reflects the
diversity of their community, and how that plays an important part in building
trust and strengthening relationships.
In fact, many of you have no doubt heard Dallas Police Chief
David Brown’s impassioned plea to the public inviting them to be a part of the
solution when he called on them to apply to be police officers. And, although it is too early to know the
results of that call and whether it will produce a diverse pool of candidates,
the Dallas Police Department has received 812 applications since Chief Brown
made his call to service following the devastating shooting of five Dallas
officers by a gunman on July 7.
But the bigger question, of course, is – how do we get
there? How do we get our police
departments to truly reflect the communities they serve? What changes do we need to make to our
recruitment practices in the 21st century, especially in terms of attracting
young adults to a career in law enforcement?
And how can we be more creative in our approach to recruitment and
employ the public, business and civic communities to help?
Of course, there are no one-size-fit-all solutions, but I
offer some examples of creative efforts undertaken by some law enforcement
agencies and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to address these important issues.
Recently, for example, to address a difficulty in recruiting
for its highway patrol officer, particularly for female candidates, the Kansas
Highway Patrol began a social media campaign targeted at female recruitment by
actively engaging in tweeting as part of recruitment. The agency released the Twitter hashtag
#GirlCopsAreAwesome [external link] and sent out tweets of female troopers with
the caption “heroes don’t wear capes, we become troopers.”
Here at the DOJ, the federal law enforcement components have
developed targeted recruitment programs, including those aimed at pipeline
development, including at historically black colleges and universities and
Hispanic-serving institutions to broaden applicant pools. Additionally, the AG’s Diversity Management
Advisory Council (which includes the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) Acting
Administrator and senior leader from FBI) has implicit bias draft curriculum
for managers and supervisors that includes implicit bias information related to
recruitment, hiring, retention, professional development and promotion.
In addition, I’d like to highlight that the COPS Office
offers several publications and guides on best practices related to recruiting,
to offer suggestions for ensuring that agencies cast a wide net in hiring to
obtain maximum pools of diverse candidates – diversity of all kinds:
socio-economic, gender, cultural – as well which factors to consider to attract
the best possible candidates.
These aren’t easy questions to address, of course, but I’m
certain that the different perspectives and ideas of everyone in this room will
help to build a roadmap that leads the way to increased diversity in our
nation’s law enforcement agencies. So
with that, I’ll close now and let this important work get underway.
And once again, on behalf of the Department of Justice,
thank you for attending and for all that you do to bring about positive change
for your communities.