How Much Effort Is Enough?

- by María Rubio

When it comes to law enforcement, race is a factor that is inevitably present. A closer examination of this topic reveals the various problems present not only in law enforcement but also within the community itself. Legitimacy of law enforcement is a necessary component in any society. Although racial profiling negatively affects the legitimacy of law enforcement, it is not enough for them to hire people of minority groups because people can still find problems with this strategy and can continue to call into question the legitimacy of law enforcement.

There are two problems concerning Stockton, California (which is the second most violent city): 1. there are not enough police officers compared to the total population size, and 2. there are not enough minority officers to adequately represent the demographics of the city. African-Americans make up roughly about 12% of Stockton’s population, yet only 2% of police officers are African-American. This contradicts the notion that the new generation of police officers are “becoming like urban neighborhoods” because otherwise the percentage of African-American police officers would be closer to 12%. This can affect the legitimacy of Stockton PD since minorities could feel that they were victims of racial profiling whenever they get stopped by an officer, even if the officer was not guilty of racial profiling.

Councilman Holman of Stockton suggests that they need to “hire more racially diverse officers”, which reflects the idea that law enforcement officers should look like the people in their neighborhood. It can help strengthen police legitimacy when minorities are fairly represented in the police force. However, another problem arises even when the police department is racially diverse. Though people might say that they weren’t necessarily victims of racial profiling, they could be more likely to view those racially diverse officers as traitors for stopping people of their same race. This goes against the idea that diversity in the police department will “bolster legitimacy at the grass roots level”. It’s not that this happens every time, but inevitably some people will feel this way, which can erode legitimacy.

Sergeant Nance of the Stockton Police Officers’ Association agrees with Holman’s claim but goes on to say that they “need more officers, not of any sort of race or sex”, which is contradictory in itself. She argues that they can’t lower the standards in order to allow applicants in (minority applicants tend to score lower). Going back to the statistics of the population compared to the police officers, about 11% of those who apply to become police officers are African-American, which represents the percentage of African-Americans in the city but most of them aren’t being hired. Though it can be argued that the most qualified candidates should get the jobs, the fact that most qualified candidates are not from minority groups can create legitimacy issues. However, hiring more racially diverse officers also has the potential to create legitimacy issues if the minority community views these officers as traitors and unjust for stopping people of their same race. There needs to be a different approach that solves the problem of there not being enough police officers and enough officers from minority groups without affecting legitimacy or at least only affecting legitimacy at a minimal level.

Sources:

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130623/A_NEWS/306230319

Musheno, Michael. Lecture 1 April 2014.