Police departments across the country face new criticism in staff diversity now more than ever. But it's difficult to get -- and keep -- qualified and diverse candidates.
"Truthfully, recruitment is probably one of the toughest things that a small agency in particular, or a medium-sized agency, goes through," Cora Beem, the manager of mandated training for the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, said.
Before that, she was the police chief for Wilmington and Sauk Village -- both in Illinois. You might have seen posted flyers or ads calling for anyone interesting on testing to be an officer and to come and fill out an application at the police station -- Rockford was doing this not too long ago. Beem says that's considered traditional recruitment. Non-traditional, on the other hand, is actively soliciting certain groups of people, like pre-law majors, DARE officers in schools or other social groups. In Beem's case, Wilmington had a large Hispanic population in particular.
"We would go out whenever it was time to hire and I would send out my sergeants and folks out to go out into the neighborhood, and I would always tell them, 'Go look for candidates, go look for kids' -- you know, go out there and find some good, strong candidates and start talking to 'em," Beem said.
There's no statute regarding department diversity, whether it's by sex, race or age. The application process is merit-based and, if you're the number one applicant for any given department, it's required by law that the department offers you the job first.
For the most part, you only need a high school education to become a police officer. But the screening process is not a walk in the park, either. Beem says you need to be a U.S. citizen, pass physical and psychological tests, and you cannot have an extensive or violent criminal record, juvenile or otherwise. That could include burglary or criminal sexual assault charges.
"As a chief, I certainly would not want to seriously look at that individual to hire them because it's an indicator of violent background," Beem said. "And as you know, in this job, people challenge police all the time, and the best gift a cop can have is patience."
And the group of prospective cops is massive.
"You can get a testing group that is so large and your hiring over two-year period is so small that you may only hire one person off of a list of 35 or 40," Beem said.
If you are a very good candidate and you also happen to be a minority, the competition between police departments is even more fierce. Beem says it was not unusual for other departments coming to her as chief and asking if they can borrow her candidates list.
"We were south side Cook County; our pay was not all that good," Beem said. "My base starting salary was like ... for these guys, it was like $32,500, and Park Ridge, which is a northern suburb, was paying $10,000 minimum on top of that with unlimited overtime. I can't beat that."
Beem says the FBI requires one or two officers for every 1,000 citizens in any given community. So the size of police departments across Illinois could range from one part-time cop in a small town to the Chicago Police Department at about 12,000 officers.