Following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the federal level, some law enforcement experts say those initiatives still have a place in police departments — and are wary of the impact the president's messaging could have on recruitment.
Such efforts — which are meant to address historic racial and gender discrimination — have resulted in more women and people of color in policing along with more promotion opportunities. Police department diversity has been under renewed scrutiny in the years following the death of George Floyd in 2020, with calls for departments to better reflect the communities they serve.
Now, messaging that targets "DEI" could be a hinderance to police departments and their recruiting efforts as they try to diversify their forces, according to Alex del Carmen, a criminologist at Tarleton State University.
“Research has shown, historically and traditionally, that when you have a law enforcement entity that represents the community that it serves, not only as it relates to race but also ethnicity but also gender, that they are more effective because they're more credible in the community,” del Carmen said.
Spanish-speaking officers who can communicate with residents in their native tongue are more effective in building trust, del Carmen said. And over the years law enforcement agencies have learned that female officers, regardless of skin color, are more effective in de-escalation of tense situations, del Carmen added.
When Trump signed the executive order, he called the initiatives “illegal and immoral discrimination.” He said the programs impacted “virtually all aspects” of the federal government, from airline safety to the military.
But while Trump's order impacts the federal branch of government, del Carmen said there are concerns from chiefs of police and police executives over the implications those standards will have on local law enforcement.
Because police departments are eligible to apply for federal grants for equipment or to help pay for an officer’s position, del Carmen said there could be hesitance on going against the grain.
“Imagine then what will happen to an agency if they get a national reputation of sort of breaking, not only the law, but perhaps the requirement that is being set forth by the new administration to simply negate the circumstances by which minorities should be recruited or intentionally recruited,” he said.
Law enforcement agencies were already experiencing a shortage of people interested in the profession due to the pay, the long hours, the stress, and its reputation of being among the professions with the highest rate of suicides, divorces, and alcoholism, del Carmen said.
“Here comes COVID, the death of George Floyd, and various other national and international things that affected, negatively, the perception of law enforcement that even augmented the lack of availability of personnel to be able to engage in an effective recruitment effort,” del Carmen said.
Effective recruitment is more than just filling roles in a department — it's important because law enforcement agencies are not always representative of the communities they serve in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity, Del Carmen said.
However, that representation is vital to public safety, said Jeff Glover, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
“What people are getting caught up is the politicization of DEI and some of these other efforts when, really, it's about being able to have diversity of thought and mindset and people coming to the table with different initiatives because they have different life experience,” Glover said.
Coming on the heels of affirmative action and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Glover said law enforcement personnel from diverse backgrounds were able to ascend the ranks through promotions that were not previously available.
The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, or NOBLE, was formed in 1976 as a response to Black law enforcement officials breaking into supervisory roles. The organization was a way for them to connect and engage with others sitting in similar positions.
“I think that we have catapulted significantly since those times,” Glover said. “But we are still dealing with a lot of challenges here.”
Glover said bad actors in policing can be a significant turnoff for minority communities who don’t see themselves reflected in the profession.
A diversity recruitment study published by the Institute for Excellence in Government, Inc. in 2021 found that confidence in law enforcement’s ability to attract and retain talent had declined. According to the report, a 2020 survey of state and local hiring officials showed that, by a margin of more than two to one, law enforcement had more open positions than qualified applicants.
The research was conducted to help law enforcement leaders attract more women and people of color to their recruitment process and retain applicants which, researchers said, would improve public trust and confidence.
Retaining applicants is a struggle Charlie Scheer, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Southern Mississippi, said he has seen in recent years.
That lack of interest often stems from the interaction recruits have with an experienced cop, Scheer said.
Potential applicants who go on a ride-along may feel uncomfortable if an experienced officer close to retirement age is questioning why they are applying and discouraging them from entering law enforcement, Scheer said.
That messaging makes it difficult to diversify the age range in a department.
“If a 40-year-old police officer views a 19-year-old interested person as not being able to be good enough for this task before they even set eyes on them, I really don't know how we can move forward,” Scheer said.
With a federal rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, Glover said departments could potentially fall back to a standard applicant script and not be intentional on hiring different backgrounds.
Cutting off diversity efforts and being unintentional in hiring processes would only harm law enforcement’s image, he added.
“We start to fall into that notion of groupthink and ‘well, this is the way that we have always done things’,” Glover said. “And that's where we come back into the ‘we're not actually performing in a way that is really innovative and, or that's really improving what we're trying to do and build on it’.”
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