Incorporating diversity: police response to multicultural changes in their communities

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, Dec, 1995 by Brad R. Bennett

TRAINING

All four police departments conduct training programs to teach employees about the many cultures within their communities. The length of the programs varies tremendously, from a few-hour presentation to a week-long course.

In the two larger departments, San Jose and Long Beach, the programs are components of advanced officer training and are offered only to sworn personnel. The two smaller agencies, Stockton and Garden Grove, provide training to all employees. Most of the programs call on community members to facilitate the training, and the departments have developed rather uncommon approaches to their cultural diversity training.

In San Jose, the police chief sought input from members of the advisory board to design the cultural diversity training program for the department. Based on their suggestions, the training starts with a segment on change. It addresses a wide range of concerns relevant to individual and organizational change, including understanding the process of change and overcoming resistance. The initial instruction and the discussions that arose from it helped to eliminate many of the barriers that often occur when dealing with new issues, ideas, and approaches.

The Long Beach Police Department collaborated with the National Conference of Christians and Jews to develop its 40-hour cultural awareness training course for all department employees. In addition to general topics related to cultural diversity, the program addresses some nontraditional subjects of interest, such as Anglo cultures, the police culture, the homeless, and various religions.

Long Beach also emphasizes cultural diversity awareness in its basic recruit training academy. Recruits receive 8 hours of classroom instruction devoted to diversity awareness, and then they spend 16 training hours with citizens from the various ethnic groups within the city. Recruits and citizens thus have an opportunity to interact in a nonconfrontational, positive way.

In addition to cultural awareness training, all four departments encourage or provide training in the various languages spoken within their communities. Bilingual or multilingual officers can be very helpful to their departments and their communities. Unfortunately, as communities become more and more diverse, the number of languages spoken increases as well, and it becomes difficult for agencies to cope. Still, by encouraging all officers to learn other languages, departments can facilitate communication with the full spectrum of community members.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

To respond to the needs of their diverse communities, the police agencies in the study tried a variety of approaches, including police substations, citizen police academies, and youth programs. Many of these initiatives did not target ethnic neighborhoods in particular; instead, they impacted the police department's responsiveness to all community members.

Police Substations

The San Jose and Garden Grove departments have placed substations in areas where very distinct populations live. Police employees, representatives from other government agencies, and citizen volunteers who speak the residents' languages staff the substations.