NCJ Number
152020
Date Published
1994
Length
84 pages
Annotation
This report presents the results of a comprehensive review of 187 California local police and fire personnel records to determine whether they reflect community composition along racial and gender lines.
Abstract
Data were obtained for 107 police departments and 80 fire departments in an eight-county area of southern California, as well as for the California Division of Forestry and Fire Prevention. Overall, the study found that the police and fire services of the eight-county region are overwhelmingly segregated by both race and gender. Dozens of the police departments have either no or inadequate numbers of Asian-Pacific Islander and African-American personnel, despite 40 years of research that details the harmful effects that racial exclusion can have on the effectiveness of a police force. Although women officers are present in all but 6 of the 107 police departments, they are underrepresented in all of the counties surveyed. Policing in these counties is overwhelmingly a profession of white males, with white men virtually controlling the command level ranks of police services. The report recommends that city and county governments hold individual chiefs accountable for the diversity performance of their departments, terminating them if they do not perform adequately in this area. The report also recommends that programs designed to achieve and maintain proportionate diversity among personnel focus on retention as well as recruitment of minority personnel. 18 tables