Effect of Multiculturalism Education on the Police Force Cultural issues affect law enforcement more than most government workers. Every day, the police come into contact with several people from practically every culture in the areas they police. This reality creates a need for policemen and women to understand the dynamics of multiculturalism. Indeed, the success of community policing depends significantly on how law enforcement relates to people of different cultures (Hendricks and Byers, 2000). An interesting dynamic when it comes to community policing is that the power law enforcement has can make them an oppressor or a friend of the community based solely on the optics of their operations. This makes multicultural education quite important to the police (Hennessy, n.d).

When designing a multicultural curriculum for a police department, it should be specifically tailored to the community being impacted and the police department in question. Carl Jung (1974) theorized...

Jung held the belief that people act and differ based on physical functions. The differences are reflected in differences in personality. Police officers, for instance, tend to be decisive, impersonal, direct, cold, logical, and pragmatic (Hennessy, 1998). When working in a multicultural setting, being cold and impersonal may work against a police officer. Rather, they should be empathetic and try to listen to arguments that may go against what they currently believe in. Making such small changes to how law enforcement operates can be very useful in helping them develop a better relationship with members of the communities they police. This is one of the reasons why multicultural education is very important (Wilkins, 1996).
Understanding the place of communication in human interactions as well as the different value systems of various cultures can help law enforcement be…