More than 71 percent of police officers in the U.S. were white in 2016
By Dustin Wyatt
Herald-Journal
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — When dozens of Black residents attended a Spartanburg County Council meeting in September to complain about their sheriff, several deputies were there to keep the peace.
All of those deputies in the room are white.
It’s a microcosm of what’s happening in communities everywhere: tensions are high between people of color and police departments, but yet too few with badges identify as a minority.
At the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office, 86 % of deputies are white. And of the 48 Black deputies, nearly half work in the jail, according to data obtained by the Herald-Journal.
Some who were at the council meeting last month to speak out against comments made by Sheriff Chuck Wright want him to do more to improve diversity within his agency. Wright said he’s doing all he can and stands by his recruiting and hiring practices.
“I only hire the most qualified candidates,” Wright told the Herald-Journal in a meeting inside his office. “It’s not a Black thing or a white thing. It’s a This-is-what-you-have-to-have thing.”
He notes that his deputies must be a U.S. citizen of at least 21 years of age who have never been convicted of a felony, a domestic violence crime or any criminal offense that carries a sentence of a year or more in jail.
“We are gonna set our standards to where our public deserves them to be,” Wright said.
Asked by the Herald-Journal what recruiting strategies his office is taking to attract more Black deputies, Wright said it’s “racist” to target one race over another.
“We want more diversity too, but to hire someone just because of their skin color whether it be white or Black is racism,” Wright said. “I hire on the content of character, not the color of your skin.”
FINDING MINORITY COPS IS A CHALLENGE
Law enforcement agencies everywhere struggle to find enough minority officers.
Of the 701,000 sworn police officers in the United States in 2016, 71.5% were white, Bureau of Justice Statistics data show, compared to an estimated 60% of the population.
In South Carolina, of the 130,000 men and women with a badge, 17 percent are Black, according to the state’s Criminal Justice Academy. By comparison, the state’s population is 29 % Black, according to census data.
Within the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, there are even fewer Black deputies compared to Spartanburg: 6.5 percent out of 443.
“It’s not a secret; we know we need more diversity,” said Jarrod Bruder, executive director of the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association. “We just have to figure out how to make it work. It’s difficult.”
It’s not getting any easier. Events that transpired this year have done little to entice more minorities to enter the field.
“It’s just the culture that law enforcement is having to deal with right now,” Bruder added. “So many people view law enforcement as the enemy and that is not who we are and that’s not who we want to be perceived to be.”
After an unarmed black man, George Floyd, was killed by a white cop in Minnesota on May 25, a survey conducted by NPR and PBS found that two-thirds of Black Americans don’t trust police to treat them equally.
“The deep divides between police and minority communities mean that many minority citizens do not want to pursue a policing career,” said Michele Covington, a criminal justice professor at USC Upstate. “As members of the public, we must realize that recruiting into policing is quite difficult, and in the current political climate it is exceedingly difficult.”
But, she added, “This is something that all agencies should be aware of and should try to improve, as best they can.”
On the other hand, what happened in Minneapolis with George Floyd and elsewhere has made police leaders even more careful as they cull through a finite number of applications.
“When you’re working toward fewer negative interactions between police and citizens, you want the most solid and mature officers you can get, and with a recruiting pool as shallow as it currently is, you may not have the option to be selective in terms of race or other desired characteristics,” she said.
‘NEED TO DO MORE’
The Floyd killing and the protests it sparked propelled Oconee County Mike Crenshaw in Oconee County to take a hard look at the reasons why he only has 13 Black deputies on staff.
This summer, he created a new staff position, an employee focused specifically on recruiting and hiring more Black deputies.
“I felt we needed to do more,” Crenshaw told the Herald-Journal in a phone interview. “I’ve always believed that a law enforcement agency should be reflective of the community it serves. We are letting everyone know that we are an agency that embraces diversity.”
City of Spartanburg Police Chief Alonzo Thompson also believes it’s Ok to recruit based on race. He put his commitment to improving diversity on the record in 2018 at a City Council meeting.
“Regrettably, some law enforcement executives assert that they would not lower their hiring standards to diversify their respective workforces,” he said. “I strongly disagree with that assertion. There are highly qualified and competent minority and women candidates in the job market. It is incumbent upon us to expand our recruiting practices and efforts.”
Today, Spartanburg’s police department has 27 Black officers patrolling its streets. That’s the same number of Black uniform patrol deputies the much larger Sheriff’s Office had on staff as of late September.
The Spartanburg PD has 118 officers. The Sheriff’s Office: 500.
CALLS FOR IMPROVEMENT
The diversity data within the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s office is troubling to Michael Brown, President of the local chapter of the NAACP.
He wants Wright to do more to improve minority representation in his agency at a time when the sheriff is taking heat from the Black community.
In the past, including recently, Brown has pushed back on comments made by Wright.
Brown said the sheriff could show he cares about improving relationships with his Black constituents by committing to hiring more who look like them.
“I have long held the position that local law enforcement should reflect, at a minimum, the demographic makeup of the community,” Brown said. “The opportunity for the community to be positively engaged with law enforcement begins with the presence of officers that look like us and have direct perspective into the realities of the lives they are sworn to protect and serve.”
It doesn’t help matters that so many of the sheriff’s deputies — 21 out 48 — work in the jail on California Avenue, not on the street interacting with the Black community, Brown added.
“There is considerable room for diversity to take place in the county and not with the bulk of black and brown “officers” working at the jail,” Brown said. “Real diversity should be found beyond California Avenue.”
RECRUITING STRATEGIES
Wright said his employees like working in the jail because it offers a more structured schedule of 12-hour shifts with set off days and less of a reliance on overtime. Jail employees also have fewer requirements.
“These deputies apply for the jail,” Wright said. “The families love it because they work 7 to 7, they have a set schedule and they know when they are going to get off.”
That’s not the case for a uniform patrol deputy, Wright added. “Sometimes you just can’t tag out. Sometimes you have to stay until it’s done.”
With the constantly revolving door of deputies, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office has a full-time employee, John Burgess, who focuses primarily on recruiting.
Burgess said the agency attends between two and four career fairs a year at several colleges and universities, including Bob Jones University, Clemson University, College of Charleston, University of South Carolina and USC Upstate.
The office also attends career days at high schools. Once a year, students are allowed to shadow deputies with the agency to learn about the profession. College internships are granted and citizens are allowed to ride-alongs with the agency.
Wright said he trusts Burgess to find the best candidates for the job. He said he doesn’t learn of the skin color of his newest hires until he asks them to raise their right hand and take their oath.
“You know when I find out what color our new deputies are? When I go to swear them in,” Wright said. “We have a good representation of every ethnicity here. We have so much diversity, not just in terms of color, that make this staff here great.”
Recruiting strategies for law enforcement agencies vary across the state, Bruder said. Some specifically target Historically Black Universities and Colleges in an effort to attract minorities.
To Mike Crenshaw in Oconee County, it’s time to get more creative.
“I’ve tasked our diversity director with truly coming up with a program that lets us change from the inside out,” Crenshaw said. “It’s easy to say we don’t have minorities in this career and do nothing about it, but we have to look at ourselves and say: What we are doing to attract minorities?”
