Manawatu Standard

Police target recruits from minority groups NZ’S first Mexican police officer:

- Charlotte Carter

Police have an uphill battle to recruit more women and ethnic minority groups, Official Informatio­n Act figures show.

The force has a target of mirroring the percentage of minority groups in the overall population by 2021.

The diversity targets sit under the wider target of 1800 new recruits over the next three years.

However, latest data shows the recruitmen­t efforts have a way to go, with Ma¯ ori making up 10.7 per cent of recent recruits, against 14.9 per cent of the general population, while women made up 35.7 per cent. ‘‘Ma¯ori attraction numbers have been close to their proportion of the population but not at the level we would like,’’police deputy chief executive of people Kaye Ryan said.

Of the 345 new recruits in the latest intake 10.1 per cent were Asian, taking them to 4.9 per cent in the police force.

Census data from 2013 showed Asian people accounted for 11.8 per cent of the population.

‘‘Current Asian numbers in the police workforce are significan­tly below their representa­tion in the community, hence we are targeting recruiting more people from these communitie­s,’’ Ryan said. The proportion of Pacific Island recruits, 6.6 per cent, almost mirrors their population of 7.4 per cent in 2013.

With the new recruits, the police force is now made up of 6.4 per cent Pacific Island people.

Women accounted for 35.7 per cent of the new recruits, with the target being 50 per cent of all recruits by 2021.

The police recruitmen­t budget was increased in the 2017/18 financial year to $1.25 million, up from $870,000 in the 2016/17 financial year.

To attract more applicants, police released a clip they called the ‘‘world’s most entertaini­ng police recruitmen­t video’’.

Police confirmed the video cost about $350,000 to make – $2000 per second of footage.

Police Commission­er Mike Bush said the video was targeted at 18 to 24-year-olds, women, Ma¯ori, Pacific Islanders, and people from all other ethnicitie­s and background­s ‘‘to better reflect the communitie­s we serve’’.

A further $10,000 of the recruitmen­t budget was paid to paint rainbow stripes on a police car, in the hope it might attract more LGBT+ recruits.

In the recent recruitmen­t drive, 12 gender-diverse individual­s applied to join the police but none were successful.

The ‘‘gender-diverse’’ option was implemente­d as a recruit applicatio­n form option in January 2016.

Police were unable to readily supply data on this, stating it would have to be sought under the Official Informatio­n Act.

Transgende­r academic and activist Lexie Matheson said she was unsure how many sworn officers who identify as transgende­r or gender-diverse were currently employed.

However, she felt police were making considerab­le progress toward diversifyi­ng their workforce. Jorge Alberto Martinez Padilla always wanted to be a police officer – and it was in Auckland that dream became a reality.

‘‘Sadly in my country of origin, the police is not the same as here,’’ he said.

‘‘You’re not always with the good guys if you’re with the police, so I kept the dream in a drawer.’’

However when he first travelled to New Zealand in 2015, he had positive interactio­ns with the police and was impressed by their approachab­ility and integrity.

‘‘I went to open the drawer where I put my dream and started thinking about it again,’’ he said.

Martinez Padilla began searching for a new country to call home after a slew of incidents in Mexico City, which made him feel increasing­ly unsafe and unprotecte­d. He became ‘‘enchanted’’ with New Zealand and began the process of becoming a citizen. ‘‘Immediatel­y after I got my residency my goal was to join the police.’’

The training was the biggest challenge he had faced in his life until now, he said. ‘‘The amount of informatio­n, the amount of things you have to learn is enormous.

‘‘I thought the only challenge would be physical or getting to the standards of physicalit­y, but when I faced the real process in college where you sit for hours doing exams and learning all this informatio­n, I was amazed,’’ he said.

Martinez Padilla’s fluent Spanish and ability to translate has proven invaluable since he started with the police.

 ??  ?? New Zealand’s first Mexican police officer, Jorge Alberto Martinez Padilla.
New Zealand’s first Mexican police officer, Jorge Alberto Martinez Padilla.

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