Law enforcement officers play a central role in ensuring that citizens, their interests, as well as the national interests, are safe and secure. In as much as they play such a significant role, they have to deal with ethnic and gender diversities, which may hamper or promote their working conditions. Law enforcement officers work in multicultural environments and they are expected to align themselves with conflicting needs. They have to balance between offering their services and meeting the demands of a multicultural environment that calls for inclusivity and fairness. While they have to be effective in their duties, they are also supposed to respect diversity, which is not always easy. At times law enforcement officers give into ethnic and gender prejudices, profiling and stereotypes which come in the way of effective policing services. It is essential to understand some of the diversity issues that law enforcement officers deal with to find their solution and help the officers to be impartial and effective.
Overview of Ethnic and Gender Diversity
Ethnic and gender diversity are concepts that refer to the covert and overt differences that are used to identify people based on their ethnic origin or gender respectively. Ethnic diversity taken separately helps in understanding an individual’s cultural or national affiliation for more straightforward labeling. The world as currently constituted is home to countless ethnic groups with each differing from others. The distinguishing aspects between one ethnic group from different languages, cultural practices and beliefs, skin color, and social value systems. On the other hand, gender diversity refers to the social roles that are allocated to men and women meaning that one is either a male or a female. Additionally, one's sexuality determines if whether one is gay, heterosexual, bisexual, transgender, or any other sexual conformity or orientation. Law enforcement officers need to be aware of these ethnic and gender diversities to know how to handle individuals and communities.
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Ethnic and Gender Diversity Issues in Policing
Law enforcement officers have to deal with ethnic and gender diversity issues in their line of duty, which may prove to be challenging. The first issue is to do with fair representation in a multicultural environment as both genders and all ethnic societies need to feel included. The problem becomes challenging in a multicultural society like the US, which is expected to lead by example in embracing and promoting diversity. In this case, law enforcement departments are expected to equally hire both men and women and individuals from minority races. At times, this kind of inclusivity may be challenging, as preference would be given to Americans and men who are considered legitimate and harsh respectively (Coon, 2016). Minority groups who feel excluded from this hiring process may think that the law enforcement officers target them, as they have no one to voice their concerns.
Gender diversity seems to be a significant issue in policing especially with women who feel left out when it comes to promotions. Most often than not, men fill senior management posts in the law enforcement agencies and departments are loaded by men who are considered more skilled and hardened. Qualified women who are ready to take up these positions tend to be barred from taking these positions thanks to male officer’s professional bias (Schuck, 2017). Women who work in police departments are usually tame and are not often sent on high-risk missions but rather carry out clerical tasks. Research indicates that female police officers who constitute a mere 12 percent of total law enforcement officers do not quickly discharge their firearms owing to these biases (Veldman et al., 2018). If any of these women manage to get senior management posts, she risks being frustrated by her male counterparts who may feel intimated. If these women are not disappointed in this say, then they risk been reduced to objects of sexual gratification by their male seniors who threaten to deploy them to high-risk areas.
Gender and ethnic diversity issues challenge the policing departments, as they are associated with prejudices and stereotypes that have taken root. Ethnic diversity seems to attract more stereotypes of ethnic profiling and prejudices ss compared to gender diversity though both have a share of stereotyping. Policing as a crucial element in the US society aimed at maintaining high levels of security, seems to perpetuate these stereotypes. According to Todak, Huff and James (2018), young African American, Latino, and Hispanic men are usually the targets for law enforcement officers who label them as drug peddlers and criminals. It is tough for this group of people to pass police roadblocks or searches without being stopped and scrutinized. This increased scrutiny owing to negative stereotyping leads to a lack of cooperation between police officers and minority races.
Solutions for Ethnic and Gender Diversity Issues in Policing
There is a need to deal with gender and ethnic diversity issues to ensure that policing is based on fairness and justice to all. Police departments need to give equal opportunities to males and females from various ethnic origins during selection, hiring, promotion, and rewarding (Miles-Johnson, 2019). Professional qualifications should be the basis for promotion as opposed to one's gender or ethnic origin. The policing environment ought to be friendly so that more females and minority groups can join law enforcement units. As it is, these departments are hostile to females, as they seem to perpetuate patriarchal connotations that limit women from pursuing their professions to the highest level available (Schuck, 2017). However, their situation can change if male officers are taught on the importance of gender diversity in policing as women have qualities that can enhance the policing process. On the issue of gender and ethnic stereotyping, law enforcement officers need to learn ways of doing away with stereotypes. In particular, law enforcement offices should start by dealing with people as individuals rather than a group and follow the due process (Hong, 2017). The law enforcement offices should not view people from ethnic or gender perspectives but rather from criminal angles. In this way, policing departments will thrive in a multicultural society and promote justice for all despite their gender or ethnic differences.
References
Coon, J. K. (2016). Police officers’ attitudes toward diversity issues: Comparing supervisors and non-supervisors on multicultural skills, values, and training. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 18 (2), 115-125.
Hong, S. (2017). Black in blue: Racial profiling and representative bureaucracy in policing revisited. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 327 (4), 547-561.
Miles-Johnson, T. (2019). Policing diverse people: How occupational attitudes and background characteristics shape police recruits’ perceptions. SAGE Open, 9 (3), 1-13.
Schuck, A. M. (2017). Female officers and community policing: Examining the connection between gender diversity and organizational change. Women & Criminal Justice, 27(5), 3341-362.
Todak, N., Huff, J., James, L. (2017). Investigating perceptions of race and ethnic diversity among prospective police officers. Police Practice and Research, 19(5), 490-504.
Veldman, J., Meeussen, L., Laar, C. V., & Phalet, K. (2017). Women (Do Not) belong here: Gender-Work identity conflict among female police officers. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 130.
