Recruiting Diversified Police Force

The Los Angeles Police Department is working hard to keep up with the growth of the city that it serves. We have 8,400 officers now; we’ll probably have a force of 10,000 by the middle of this decade. That means great career opportunities for several thousand qualified candidates.

As sure as the city will continue growing in size, it will also continue growing in diversity. Los Angeles is already one of the most ethnically and racially mixed metropolises in the world; it will only become more so. More and more the men and women wearing LAPD blue are reflecting that diversity. Even so, a popular LAPD slogan proclaims that our cops come only in one color--blue. That slogan captions a mosaic of multicolored male and female faces of Los Angeles police officers on our recruiting posters and brochures. It is the theme of our campaign to add to that mosaic of faces until it becomes a true demographic reflection of the city. We are proud of the progress we have made toward that end. As of a few days ago, 1,772 Latinos, 1,128 blacks and 1,068 women are officers of the LAPD. Despite the rapidly growing number of Asians in Los Angeles, we’ve only been able to recruit 210 officers of Asian heritage. But, we’re working hard to increase that number.

We want to get the message to qualified candidates that LAPD is widely recognized as the world’s premier police force. It offers a career with a current starting salary as high as $37,000 and its officers are members of a great pension system.

Even more important than financial incentives is the fact that, day in and day out, a police officer has the tangible feeling that he or she has a career that makes a difference--a career that matters. Though we are still the thin blue line between anarchy and civilization, we are also an honorable line of great distinction.

No doubt about it, when you are an LAPD cop, you are somebody. You are a member of an important, high-profile family. You are the subject of expensive studies and extensive surveys by major newspapers and universities. One such recent survey found that despite the recruitment of unprecedented numbers of female, black and Latino officers, members of the LAPD think and act with remarkable uniformity. It came through loud and clear that men and women of all races were proud to be members of the LAPD family.

As we search for future members of the expanding LAPD, we shall continue to reach out to candidates in every community. Our message to potential officers is simple and straightforward: We need good cops of all kinds. In addition to meeting age and physical standards, you must be an honest person who respects the law and the rights of others, who is dependable and responsible, who has demonstrated mature judgment and has exercised responsibility in making decisions, including decisions pertaining to drugs and intoxicants. The LAPD does not tolerate drug abusers, including so-called casual abusers.

We will determine if each person is a qualified candidate by asking many probing questions of the candidate and of those who know the candidate. But, we will not pry into personal and private issues that are irrelevant. For example, sexual orientation is irrelevant to us, ought to be irrelevant to everyone and will continue to be irrelevant in our recruitment efforts. We are simply looking for good people who will be good cops.

CHIEF DARYL F. GATES

Los Angeles Police Department