The fact that Carbondale's police force only has four black officers was no big shocker.
After all, the city actually had to create a race task force last year in response to allegations of racial profiling. The Daily Egyptian has since reported numerous complaints by SIUC students about police treatment of blacks.
As many as 30 years ago, the city realized that minority representation was lacking in its ranks, so it set a goal for itself: the makeup of city employees would reflect the community.
The city office has achieved this goal. While Carbondale's black population hovers around 17 percent, the city has about 20 percent black representation.
The Carbondale Police Department would have to hire at least six new black officers to meet this goal. But the task is not as easy as it sounds.
First, minorities make up less than 3 percent of all police officers nationwide, and nearly every force struggles with recruitment and retention of black officers.
Second, the criteria of an associate's degree or 60 credit hours of college depletes the minority candidate pool, according to the city. But the goal of representation is not to represent all qualified black residents, but rather all black residents. There must be a large reserve of enough college-educated black residents to represent their population in this University community. But for whatever reasons, blacks either are not applying or are not being hired. Is anyone looking into the reasons behind this? They should be.
The tainted image of the police force must affect blacks' decisions to work for it. What black person would want to work in an environment that is perceived as racist?
Not only do community relations assist in this negative image of a racist force, but the department's own past paints a similarly disturbing picture. The first promotion of a black officer occurred in 1991, and the second was debated in federal court before being promptly settled by the city after only two days of a racial discrimination trial.
The city and police department's response to citizens' concerns are largely met with a stone wall. They will rarely admit there is a problem, instead deflecting to the factors that make it difficult to hire and retain minority officers. While we agree that it is difficult, there is too much smoke for there not to be fire. The police department needs to do a little soul searching. Is racism a problem on the force? Are officials truly concerned about reaching that minority representation goal? What concrete plans do they have for achieving this decades-old goal?
The department would be much more respected by recognizing there is a problem and doing its best to fix it instead of hiding behind excuses. By showing commitment to turning that image around, the police force would be better in tune with the community and attract quality minority applicants.
The city and police force are working on creating Community Service Officer positions that would allow less-educated candidates to work part time while attending classes to meet the necessary college requirements. This is an important first step. Perhaps some of these junior officers' time would be best spent addressing the image problem. Former St. Louis Mayor and Police Chief Clarence Harmon provided many suggestions, such as recruiting from historically black universities and devising a plan and sticking to it.
Instead of the defensive everything-is-OK attitude, it's time for the city and police force to open up and admit there is a perception problem, and that the low numbers of blacks in the ranks is feeding it. Black community members could assist in addressing these issues, if they were listened to instead of ignored.
While it would not happen overnight, getting those black numbers where they need to be would be a tremendous positive for a police force that has been overshadowed by the perception of racism. The city would be wise to address these issues head-on, instead of the usual game of duck and cover.
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
