In much of America, relations between the police and the African-American community have long been tense. In some regions, the police are viewed as an occupying army present not to protect the people but to control them and to keep them in their place. Numerous civil disturbances in recent decades can be traced to tensions between the police and the black community, from the riots of the summer of 1965 to the riot in Los Angeles after the first Rodney King verdict, from the problems in Crown Heights in New York to any number of disputed police shooting incidents in cities across the country. Even without a specific incident to set off a disturbance, there is often an underlying tension between poor black communities and the surrounding society, wit

The minority population is slowly yet steadily increasing. Both the increase in population and changes in ethnic demographics have affected the city's public safety needs and contribute to the department's difficulty in becoming more diverse (Allen, 2003).

Developing a plan for hiring more minority officers can begin with analyzing what other departments have done to address the same issue, and some of what is found in a survey on the subject includes good recommendations for an approach to take. For instance, an Action Plan offered by the department in the Canadian city of Brantford includes noting that the minorities already in the department can be a great help in recruiting new minority hires by serving as the face of the department in certain communities. For instance, these officers can be depicted in recruitment materials in the law enforcement role whenever possible to encourage potential female and visible minority candidates. These officers can also be used to give active encouragement for the recruitment of potential candidates. They can also represent the department at high schools, colleges, and universities to attract potential candidates through continued participation in such things as the student co-op placement program, anti-vandalism program, and the High School Resource Officer program. These officers can also work with groups in the community representing the community diversity to build relationships and encourage potential candidates, which will also involve sitting on police liaison committees and hosting Citizenship Court (Recruiting Process, 2004).

Within the department, a mentor program can be created to empower existing minority officers to give assistance, training, and advice to new recruits, a program that would help all officers and the department as a whole and that would also be especially useful for keeping new minority hires on track so they do not get discouraged and resign, as often happens. The mentors also serve as role models of what advancement brings.

The very complex, diffuse, interrelated, but still independent nature of the social, political, and economic institutions within American society, supported by layers and layers of public and private bureaucracies often manipulated by elusive, anonymous power brokers, perpetually frustrate the attempts of Black Americans to modify and reorder societal arrangements in their favor. Therefore, the "system" is identified as the culprit (Wintersmith, 1974, p. 2).

Allen (2003) suggests that the only way to keep police departments focused on minority hiring is by instituting an affirmative action program, but given recent court rulings and public attitudes, that is not a viable solution. Allen does note that keeping up with minority hiring is a problem because what is required always changes, as noted with reference to mesa, Arizona:

Some common words found in the essay are:
Recruiting Process, Community Policing, Wilson Kelling, Moran Bucqueroux, , Action Plan, Black Americans, Carter Radelet, Heights York, Resource Officer, community policing, minority hiring, police officers, minority officers, potential candidates, wilson kelling 1989, wilson kelling, black community, police department, police departments, black communities, carter radelet 1999, wintersmith 1974 2,
Approximate Word count = 2014
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)