Diversity, affirmative action, and law enforcement

de George T. Felkenes, Peter C. Unsinger

Focusing on issues that have implications for every law enforcement agency in the United States, these seven papers examine the impact of a 1980 Federal district court consent decree concerning affirmative action on police recruitment, selection, training, and employment in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the City of Los Angeles. In 1973, a female sergeant in the LAPD filed a complaint alleging that the city of Los Angeles engaged in employment discrimination based on sex. Subsequently, a complaint was filed by the U.S. Attorney in Federal court alleging also that the City and the LAPD had practiced employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, and national origin. The Blake Consent Decree included within its requirements the essence of affirmative action and diversity in law enforcement. Individual papers in this volume focus on the characteristics of police academy training classes, models of police demographics before and after the decree, the evaluation of the positive and negative effects of the decree, legal rights of minorities and women resulting from their political emergence in American society, and police attitudes. Tables, figure, name and subject indexes, list of court cases, and appended survey form.