Hiring Standards for Police

Police agencies are governed and influenced by a political and governmental social system operating in interrelated roles with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Within the system, police hiring practices are influenced by federal, state, and local lawmaking bodies; city managers and mayors; corporation counsels and city planners; community advocates; and federal and state courts. Beneath these exigencies lies a broad and dynamic social system composed of cultural, educational, political, religious, and economic institutions, including the mass media that also shape this process. How police are recruited and hired, trained and retained, must be seen in the context of this vast and complex network of social institutions. The enormous progress during the past two decades in declaring operational efficacy, mission statements, and professional standards by individual police departments represents the most solid evidence for equitable hiring standards of American law enforcement.

In the 1960s–1970s, minorities and women demanded and received equal employment opportunities through the amendments of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As a result, local police agencies are under the mandate to hire a workforce that reflects the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of their communities. Numerous Supreme Court decisions have also substantially affected law enforcement agencies in the past four decades. In response to such rulings, these agencies have placed an increasing emphasis on preserving civil rights in the provision of public safety to the community at large.

Modern police hiring standards are continuously reviewed by a wide variety of federal and state agencies: affirmative action agencies, civil service (merit) systems, and collective bargaining (labor unions); in the case of ongoing litigation, they fall under the purview of a court-appointed special master or compliance monitor.