By Sophie Hayes
Special to The Seattle Medium
The Seattle Police Department has been cited as one of the most racially balanced police departments in the country, but that doesn’t solve all community engagement problems, according to a report released Wednesday by the city’s Community Police Commission.
In the study, the CPC was looking for answers to a couple of questions: When it comes to recruiting, hiring and training officers, are SPD’s policies fair to racial, ethnic, immigrant and refugee communities? And, are officers being prepared to positively engage with these groups?
Incidents between the SPD and people of color, including the 2010 shooting death by a Seattle police officer of woodcarver John T. Williams, raised public concern about bias and use of excessive force in the SPD.
After a federal investigation, the city made an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to reform SPD practices. The city established the CPC in 2012 to provide community input on the proposed reforms. The commission is comprised of 15 commissioners chosen to represent the diversity of Seattle.
The CPC focused on SPD’s recruiting, hiring and training policies in their report because it was one of biggest areas of concern voiced in meetings with these communities, said Anne Bettesworth, a policy analyst for CPC who led the majority of the report’s research.
“A lot of people said they felt like it was impossible to get on the police force,” Bettesworth said. “They were actually interested in jobs, but didn’t feel like it was very attainable.”
The CPC intends to release a second report in spring about the formal communication channels available to racial, ethnic, immigrant and refugee communities to provide input to SPD, and vice versa.
In addition to interviews with individuals in racial and ethnic communities for both reports, the CPC interviewed SPD staff and the Seattle Public Safety Civil Service Commission, who administers police and fire exams. They analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data for information on racial makeup, and researched policies and practices of other law agencies across the country.
After nearly a year of research, the CPC found both good and bad in SPD’s community-engagement efforts and related policies. The report makes no recommendations, but according to commissioners it is part of a process to gather information that they hope will lead to reforms.
Finding: SPD’s racial makeup reflects Seattle’s population
The report found that SPD’s racial makeup closely mirrors that of Seattle’s residents, more so than other law-enforcement agencies nationally and in the Pacific Northwest.
A racially balanced police department conveys a sense of equity to the population and increases the likelihood that officers will understand and respect racially diverse perspectives on the job, according to the report.
However, a balanced racial makeup of a police force isn’t enough to build trust in the community, Bettesworth said.
“Just because there’s a Black officer talking to a Black citizen on the street, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a positive interaction,” she said. “We came to realize that all of the officers, no matter what race, need to have strategies and training in order to connect and communicate with community members.”
Finding: SPD doesn’t have a plan to increase diversity
In 2013, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said he planned to increase SPD’s staff by 100 by the end of 2018.
Despite what many see as an opportunity to further diversify their department, SPD hasn’t made any specific goals to do so, the report says.
“We wanted to get involved sooner rather than later,” said Harriett Walden, co-chair of the CPC. “It’s time sensitive, and that’s why we issued it now. We wanted to be involved in changing the culture.”
SPD uses a “colorblind” approach when recruiting and hiring officers. Their hiring team told the CPC that they treat all candidates equally; race isn’t a consideration. The report says this position may be a sign of SPD’s lack of goals for diversity.
The report also found that the SPD Recruiting Unit’s strategic plan hasn’t changed in at least three years.
The SPD jobs website does show photos of racially diverse officers, and is helpful in posting information regarding how to apply, testing dates, salary and shift schedules, according to the report.
But the CPC remains critical that there is no specific mention that SPD is seeking racially and ethnically diverse candidates. Neither does the website point out that SPD is an equal opportunity employer.
Finding: Negative views of policing are detrimental to recruiting for diversity
By interviewing individuals, the CPC found that people in communities of color, including immigrant and refugee groups, hold negative views of policing.
They associate police with bias and unequal treatment. They assume policing is a white-dominated and racist profession. They feel limited by their lack of English proficiency. They thought cultural differences would preclude them from fitting into SPD, the report says.
In the report, SPD’s human resource directors say the media portrayals of the department is the single greatest challenge to recruiting diverse employees.
Finding: High proportion of diverse candidates drop out or fail civil-service exam
SPD uses a multi-hurdle approach on its civil-service exam, under the assumption that candidates who can surmount all the challenges will be the most successful officers. After the written and video portions – which make up what is called the civil-service exam – the candidates undergo a physical agility test, background testing with several interviews and oral boards, psychological testing and a medical exam.
The civil-service exam is only offered four times a year at the University of Washington, and this may lead applicants from racial and ethnic communities to apply for different jobs, according to the report.
It’s also designed so candidates who score higher move faster through the rest of the process. Candidates from non-majority communities could be at a disadvantage because of the historically wide achievement gap between communities of color and Whites on standardized tests.
Thirty one percent of White candidates failed the entry-level civil-service exam in a testing period that covered parts of 2014 and 2015, while 46 percent of racial and ethnic candidates failed, according to the report.
After the physical agility test, candidates undergo a series of background checks and oral boards where they’re interviewed by a panel of officers and detectives. It’s in this part of the process that SPD does not collect data on racial and ethnic communities. And, the candidates who fail at this point are not told why.
“They’re not going out of their way to see if anything is disproportionately affecting anyone of color,” Bettesworth said. “We asked for that data, they said, yes, that there was a team getting it for us, and then communication just stopped and they didn’t respond to my emails. The implications could be really bad, but I think they need to be looking at it, let alone sharing it with others.”
SPD spokesperson Sean Whitcomb says the department works closely with the Public Civil Service Commission to ensure they’re hiring from a diverse pool of candidates that represents the population of Seattle.
“We’re constantly looking to improve the diversity of the department. We still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We’re not content with the status quo.”
What’s next?
After the second report is released in spring, the CPC will hold community meetings where formal recommendations will be created for SPD to begin planning ways to improve their engagement with these four groups.
“We don’t think that if the department increased the representation of officers of color, that this work would be finished,” said Lisa Daugaard, co-chair of the CPC. “If only it were that easy.”
