Diversity Training in Law Enforcement

Interview with a Metropolitan Police Officer Diversity training is important for law enforcement because, as this interview shows, it helps officers to be more comfortable, confident, and effective in dealing with diverse members of the community to defuse situations and keep them from escalating to a point where violence and force become necessary. Summary of the Interview The person I interviewed is a metropolitan police officer in the local city where I live.

I know the individual from grade school days and have kept in contact with him over the years. Now that he is in law enforcement and directly involved in the criminal justice system, and also readily available for an interview, he seemed like the perfect candidate for this assignment.

The focus of the interview was on an incident that the officer was called to involving a domestic dispute between neighbors: on the one side of the dispute were two Caucasians, a male and a female in their twenties, and on the other side were three African Americans in their twenties, two females and one male. The interview included a discussion of race, gender and sexual orientation, as the Caucasian male identified as a homosexual.

The dispute was over a parking space in front of an apartment complex: the Caucasians and the African Americans were fighting over who was in the space first and the two cars unwilling to back off ending up colliding. The argument threatened to escalate especially when the community gathered around to watch and film and the people involved in the incident turned on the approaching officer who was sent by the dispatcher to the scene of the incident.

The officer called for back-up upon arrival but was able to defuse the situation by directing the two parties to separate so that he could hear both sides of the story, calm both sides and proceed to directing both sides to an agreeable solution that did not involve anyone going to jail and all parties shaking hands and apologizing.

Critical Analysis and Reflection As Hosner and Gomila (2008) point out, “Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime” (p. 17).

The officer I interviewed said that community policing was a top priority in his department because the city had experienced racial issues in the past and community policing was meant to help alleviate the symptoms of racial tension.

The police officer was able to build trust among the different racial and gender communities in this incident by calmly communicating with them, defusing tension, and showing that he wanted to hear both sides of the story and help the participants come to an agreeable solution so that no one would have to be taken to court over a potential disturbance of the peace charge. The people involved were willing to talk it out once they realized the officer wanted to assist and help rather than prosecute and find fault.

In this way, the officer was able to build trust and everyone watching saw that he was of good will and several people thanked him for his calm intervention afterwards. The interview showed to me that it is important to go into a situation without bias or prejudice or a desire to judge. The officer could easily have shown up, handed out tickets to the people involved, or arrested several of them for fighting.

However, in an effort to build good will in the community, he instead decided to listen to their grievances and, without choosing one side over the other was able to show that in order for them to live together as good neighbors they have to be willing to work things out in a calm, rational manner.

When the group saw that he was only being logical in his approach and not trying to bring more trouble to their lives, they appreciated what he was doing and immediately responded with regret for letting things get out of hand. It showed me that sometimes people in a community can lose control of their emotions and let tempers fly.

It is important as a law enforcement officer to know how to calm these situations and talk to people of diverse backgrounds so as not to inflame the situation or cause resentment or offense. I found the interviewee to be a skilled critical thinker and well aware of different policing models and theories of policing. He mentioned broken windows theory, community policing, and racial profiling and of the three he said that he felt community policing was most effective in building trust and positive relationships.

The interview also showed me that open discourse and questioning are valuable skills to develop when it comes to critical thinking and researching in areas of diversity because I learned from asking basic questions how important an actual law enforcement officer takes diversity training and views it positively since we all live in a diverse community and have to be mindful and respectful of others.

Critical Research and Vision of Solutions and Examples to Help Extinguish Societal Oppression Solutions to help extinguish societal oppression include: 1) community policing, 2) communicating effectively with members of the community in order to build relationships and trust, and 3) receiving training in diversity so that cultural differences can be understood and racial and gender issues can be appreciated and addressed calmly and confidently by law enforcement officers so that respect is always shown to people no matter their sexual orientation, ethnicity, background, or race.

Social oppression occurs because of prejudice and bias; the long prejudice and bias are allowed to persist the worse a community can get. Officers have to help to restore order by being open-minded and communicative instead of judgmental and authoritative. Community policing can help because it opens pathways to positive interactions. Building trust and respectful relationships between members of the community by enabling police to talk things out with people who are fighting can eliminate societal oppression as it encourages one another to put each other on an equal plane.

Training in diversity can help because it gives officers a sense of how to approach different community members so that the officer can appear knowledgeable and appreciative, which in turn creates a favorable oppression on others and lifts them out of their victimhood status so that they can become role players in their own self-actualization.

Three reasons why diversity training is important for law enforcement are: 1) diversity training can help reduce turnover among police officers by preparing them to interact with a diverse community so that they are not put off or surprised by conflicts related to racial, sexual or gender issues that they are likely to encounter—i.e., the more prepared an officer is the more likely the officer will be to engage with the community in a positive and confident manner, taking pleasure in addressing issues in a way that satisfies all stakeholders (Hanser & Gomila, 2008).

Secondly, diversity training is important because 2) it helps the department to achieve the objective of building good-will between officers and community members: diversity training teaches respect and understanding and this in turn leads to positive interactions between officers and people on the street and in the neighborhoods.

Thirdly, diversity training is important because 3) much of the nation is now very diverse in demographic and officers have to be aware of how prejudice and bias against populations leads to problems; by engaging in diversity training officers can be taught about how language barriers, community distrust.