Police and Affrimative Action Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Police and Affrimative Action - Research Paper Example The main areas in the police selection process where affirmative action has had its effects include physical agility testing and use of written assessments. Today, people from the minority groups hold a significant number of positions in the police department. Affirmative action is a policy developed in United States in order to create guidelines to use either directly or indirectly in awarding jobs, promotions, and resources to persons from minority groups. Persons from minority groups who seek employment in the police force must prove their membership in a protected group for them to be employed. This move by the US government aimed at compensating people believed to be from minority groups for past discrimination. The main objective of the affirmative action includes ensuring that the number of women and racial minorities in the police department approximates the number of the majorities. The introduction of physical agility testing and written tests in the police selection process marked the beginning of reforms that were to be experienced in the police department. The use of physical agility testing used standards on height and weight at its inception. The process later adopted health based physical agility screening to end the inefficiencies of use of height and weight. The use of health based testing procedure incorporated gender based norms, which reduced gender based biases that occurred when physical agility testing was in place (COOP, 2005). Application of written tests was mainly concerned on the way minorities performed in the written tests. The use of written tests revealed that minorities had poor performances on police written selection tests compared to their majority counterparts. This appeared to be a form of racial discrimination and it discouraged the minorities from choosing policing as a career. Therefore, various concerned groups forwarded recommendations on the need to improve the use of written tests