Report: State police struggle to recruit more minorities, women

AP - State police efforts to bring in more minorities and women are being thwarted because the recruits fail admission tests and background checks at disproportionately higher rates, according to an analysis published in The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark. White males make up about one-third of New Jersey’s population. But four-fifths of the 2,966 active members of the state police are white men, a rate only slightly lower than 1999, when minority recruiting efforts were officially acknowledged as ``significantly flawed.’’ The problem isn’t in the numbers of minorities and women applying to join, but in how they fare in admission tests and background checks, according to The Star-Ledger’s analysis of recruiting data since 1999. Of 19,723 people applying to join the force over the past seven years, 1,471 made the cut, with 1,349 choosing to report to the state police training academy. White men were two to three times more likely make it through the process, the analysis showed. Hispanic and black candidates failed background checks at least three times more than often white candidates. Women were three times more likely than men to fail the physical. Seven of 10 black applicants didn’t pass the written test. The situation comes even though the state has spent millions over the years on reform efforts, including major changes to the recruiting and testing process, bringing in outside consultants to grade applicants, and accepting regular monitoring by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which sued the state a decade ago. ``I’m not saying these (recruiting) efforts are for nil. But they’re not where they should be,’’ Renee Steinhagen, director of the public-interest law center New Jersey Appleseed, told The Star-Ledger. State police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes acknowledged that his agency could be doing ``a lot better.’’ New Jersey isn’t the only state where law enforcement has struggled to bring in more minorities. This year, state police in Indiana lowered their educational standards, allowing high school graduates to apply. Fort Lauderdale, Fla., police have started advertising on buses running mostly in minority neighborhoods. ``The crisis is universal _ and it is universal at the local, state and federal level,’’ said Jason Abend, executive director of the Arlington, Va.-based National Law Enforcement Recruiters Association. ``It’s just more obvious at the state police level because you’re talking about a smaller group with more elite standards,’’ Abend said. In New Jersey, Attorney General Zulima Farber, who earlier this year became the first Hispanic to hold the office, said she’s considering changing recruitment efforts once again. Proposals might include a tutoring program to help more applicants pass the written test, and a document explaining the background check that would be distributed early in the selection process, saving unqualified candidates and administrators from the efforts involved with further tests. ``It’s going to take a continued, concerted effort without any backsliding to make the state police look like the people it serves,’’ Farber said.