In a push to hire minority police officers, the Obama administration is asking the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies to forgive drug use, disregard the criminal records of candidates from “underrepresented communities” and lower standards on written and physical exams. It’s part of the administration’s Advancing Diversity in Law Enforcement initiative following a string of officer-involved shootings involving African Americans. Key to the mission is the racial diversification of local law enforcement agencies so that they “better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.”
To accomplish this, several barriers must be removed and the details are outlined in a report issued jointly by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws. The document aims to help carry out the recommendations of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Chief among them is identifying barriers that undermine diversity in law enforcement in three key areas; recruitment, hiring and retention. To eliminate the largest barriers agencies are adopting a “holistic view” of applicants’ skills and strengths by, among other things, ignoring their criminal record. Here’s an excerpt from the report: “Certain barriers – including background investigations that treat all arrests and criminal convictions alike regardless of type of offense or how recent the occurrence, or even screen out those voluntarily admitting to drug use alone (without any conviction) – can prevent the agency from hiring the diverse officers it needs to connect with and serve the entire community.” – READ MORE
