Criminal Justice

The minority groups underrepresented in almost all large law enforcement arms in United States so that the police force does not mirror the communities in the society. There are various reasons for this, and the major being that the many in the minority group don not to get into the police profession which leads to low recruitment numbers (Dempsey & Forst, 2013). For instance, many of the Hispanics from countries where the level of police corruption is high do not want anything to do with the police. In addition, not many people are interested joining the police force as is the case of Las Vegas where few students want to join the Metropolitan Police Dpartment. In other police agencies, it can be the hiring practices instead of the recruitment efforts that have contributed to lack of minority representation.  For instance, there was a lawsuit in Pittsburgh City where the American Civil Liberties Union alleged that there was discrimination on police d hiring process and practices (ACLU, n.d).  Some segments of police departments may hold the view that having officers of color is not necessary for ensuring delivery of just policing, and this is not uncommon in law enforcement.

 Some segments of police force have turned to affirmative action which is aimed at encouraging equal opportunities and to have a level playing field for those groups have been discriminated against. Affirmative action is rooted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and was initially aimed at eliminating any imbalances in hiring practices and policies. the police departments have been using this as a tool for correcting  past racial discrimination , with a major aim of being ensuring that the minority percentage in specific job categories is about the same to the percentage of other groups in adult workforce (Dempsey & Forst, 2013). The police departments have resulted to hiring more minorities through an aggressive recruitment, revision of entrants’ requirements and even setting of quotas. As a civil rights policy, affirmative action is based on the premise that equality in results will be attained in terms of having adequate minority representation in the police departments. However, results equality is not similar to opportunity equality as long as the former pays attention to the same outcomes and the latter place focus on minimizing discrimination in the recruitment process, promotion or other good or service desired by the society (Kanovitz, 2015).Issues have arisen where affirmative action has been viewed as offering preferential treatment to some people on the basis of their color, ethnicity or race in public employment.

 There is also the notion that affirmative action increases the focus on minority especially the race rather than helping to create a diversified police workforce that is not based on color. Since the minority groups are still not represented equally in the police force, the affirmative action which was at first intended to address consequences of discrimination should redress the effects of discrimination against the minority.  The issue of reverse discrimination arises where the majority group feels that minorities are being offered preferential treatment at their expense. The proponent of affirmative action view this discrimination as seeking to redress past social injustices , where the majority groups  were given an access to opportunities which were not available to the minority (Kanovitz,2015).  The use of affirmative action has led to increased inclusion of police officers from among the minority groups, where an even progress in recruiting and hiring of minority groups has been achieved.  Presently, there is a higher percentage of minority police officers from the Africa-Americans in local police departments.

 The issue of affirmative action brought about various allegations of reverse discrimination; and its impact on police culture can be addressed from the feeling that there is preferential treatment for minorities while the majorities are being discriminated against. The culture developed out of such feelings is that the right channels or criteria are being overlooked while trying to gain racial diversity in police departments. With many lawsuits by the majority against preferential treatment of the minority in recruitment and promotion, a culture where affirmative action and racial diversity are deemed unnecessary will be established. Many will feel that discrimination resulting from affirmative action will no long be necessary and there for a need to advocate for hiring and promotions based on criteria. There will be a feeling the rights of the a majority are being violated in favor of promoting or even protecting the Hispanics , blacks and other minority groups(Dempsey & Forst, 2013) . In such cases the majority police officers will feel that they were are being passed over for various benefits and promotions to those in the lower ranks even where they perform better and rank higher in relation to eligibility than other minority people.  This will lead to a culture where eligibility and performance criteria are by-passed as the main tool of assessing and rewarding promotions in the police department.  Such a culture will attract resentment which is not good in promoting diversity.

Reference

Dempsey, J. S., & Forst, L. S. (2013). An introduction to policing. Cengage Learning.201-203

Kanovitz, J., (2015). Constitutional Law for Criminal Justice. Routledge. 512 -513