In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and increasing controversy regarding police brutality, police departments have become more aware of their recruits. San Diego is California’s second-largest city, equipped with a diverse demographic that the San Diego Police Department has recently taken initiative in representing.
The SDPD took on this hiring process following findings from the city’s independent budget analyst, which found that the city was severely understaffed as recent as May of 2018. The staffing shortage was due to the decreasing number of applications that the department had been receiving since 2013. In response, the SDPD concerted its effort on streamlining the recruiting and hiring process.
The department has also targeted community centers, high schools, and colleges in hopes of finding new recruits. Their efforts have paid off as the average number of officers leaving the department each month has decreased over the past year.
In a recent update, the San Diego Police Department explained to the City Council’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee that they have hired nearly 100 new police officers. The SDPD also announced that half of the new hires were people of color and 15 percent were women.
These statistics stood out because both were higher than the national average. In a press release, SDPD assistant chief of recruiting and retention Sandra Albreksten said that most law enforcement agencies have about 11 percent female hires. She also added that minority groups make up roughly a quarter of hirings.
The San Diego Police Department previously faced high rates of unemployment, but the organization turned a possible disaster into an opportunity to strengthen its police force and make San Diego a more welcoming community. Albrektsen said of the SDPD’s rate of recruiting women, “We’re a very open, accepting, and loving community.”
Photo by Martin Ljungqvist via Flickr
