Data: Connecticut police departments lack diversity
The now infamous killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis has again put sharp focus on the wide disparities of race and ethnicity in the makeup of most local police forces from the communities they safeguard – including those in Connecticut.
At nearly all of the Connecticut’s larger
municipalities there is a yawning gulf between the ethnic and racial makeup of the police departments and the populations of the communities they serve. The disparities have changed little since the CT Mirror first documented them in 2014 after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
In Hartford, only about 11.5 percent percent of the police department is black, while the city has a 36 percent black population. About 35 percent of Danbury’s population is Latino, but only 9 percent of its police officers claim that ethnicity. And roughly 11.4 percent of Meriden’s population is black, but only about 3.4 percent of its police officers are African-American.
The Bridgeport Police Department did not respond to requests for information about the current racial and ethnic makeup of its force but, in 2014, the population of Connecticut’s largest city was 35 percent black, compared to 15 percent of its police.
In New Britain, however, 9.6 percent of its police force is African American, nearly matching the population rate of African-Americans in the city. New Britain Police Chief Christopher Chute, a 22-year veteran of the force, is proud of that, but says he’d like to boost the numbers of Latinos in his ranks. “We really need more Hispanics to apply,” Chute said.
While the population of New Britain is more than 45 percent Latino, only 11.5 percent of its police force is Hispanic.
“Recruiting is one of the most difficult things in 2020,” Chute said, not only for minority officers but “across the board.”
“There’s been a steady decline in applications and we don’t have all the answers why,” Chute said. He said negative publicity may have dampened enthusiasm for a career in law enforcement.
Since he’d like his police force to reflect his community, Chute said he aggressively tries to recruit minority candidates, first from the town and then at other venues including sites across
the state that hold the CHIP Physical Ability Assessment used in Connecticut to determine whether an applicant is physically fit for a policing job.
“We set up a booth right at the site,” Chute said.
Besides passing the CHIP test, applicants for Connecticut’s municipal police forces must pass a written test, polygraph exam, background check, psychological evaluation and medical exam.
But the rigorous application process is not usually a problem, Chute said.
“The problem is we need to get them in the door first,” he said.
Retention is also not a problem, Chute said, since the New Britain Police Department offers personnel the opportunity to retire with a state pension.
Many small police forces say their officers are lured away to large, city departments that can offer better pay and benefits.
Experts say that increasing the ranks of minority officers alone won’t solve all the underlying problems of police brutality. But they also say diversity could help strengthen ties between local police and the communities on their beat.
Daryl McGraw, co-chairman of the Police Accountability Task Force, said the disconnect between urban communities and their police forces make residents feel like being in prison. Police “act like guards instead of being part of the community,” he said.
McGraw said police should ideally be recruited from the communities they serve, which would naturally lead not only to a more accurate reflection of its racial composition, but also to a deeper knowledge of the people and places they work to protect.
Like Chute, Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo said it’s been hard to recruit new officers in the past few years, whether they be white, black or Hispanic.
“It’s not a career that’s desired right now,” Spagnolo said. “There’s been a lot of negative stories and negative sentiment about the police.”
Yet Spagnolo said having a diverse force is important and he’s made outreach to the local NAACP, faith based leaders and put up a tent — for 16 hours — at “The Gathering” a multicultural event Waterbury holds every year. Those recruitment efforts may have had some success because Spagnolo said about 40 percent of the applicants in his last recruitment drive were minorities.
“Our goal is to have a police force that reflects the community it serves,” Spagnolo said.
He said a diverse force may not be the cure-all to bad policing — he believes training is central to good policing — but said diversity helps police understand cultural issues and foster closer ties with multi-racial and multi-cultural communities.
He said his “progressive” force already undergoes “implicit bias training” and “de-escalation training,” and is considering adding antiracism training to the curriculum.
As far as reforms, Spagnolo said some may be needed and the federal government should tie policing grants to mandatory training and other requirements.
“Policing is going through a very drastic change,” Spagnolo said. “It’s a very volatile situation.”
Changing the culture
A number of factors are slowing progress in addressing an imbalance that dates back generations, including the lack of appeal a policing job holds for many minority youth — especially because there is evidence blacks and Hispanics are more likely to suffer violence at the hands of police officers.
The racial imbalance is not by any means apparent only in Connecticut.
A 2016 survey by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, the latest available of most of the nation’s police departments and sheriff ’s offices, found that, nationwide overall, one in four officers, and one in five first-line supervisors, were black or Hispanic. Since measures of the nation’s population range from about 12.4 percent- 13.4 percent black and 17-18.3 percent Latino — some 30-32 percent minority — the disparity between the minority composition of police nationally and of the nation’s population seems not that wide.