Nassau County has announced that there will be a new police diversity committee to oversee and modify the department’s hiring process on Thursday, as reported by Fox News.
“My administration and the police department and Commissioner Ryder, we are all committed to increasing diversity in our police force,” Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said on Thursday in Mineola.
Curran will team up with members of the County’s newly established Police Diversity Committee. The purpose of the new committee is to seek ways to upgrade diversity throughout the Police department. It will be targeting all three stages to achieve the set objectives: recruitment, testing, and hiring.
“Just because something has been a problem or a challenge for many years, for many decades, doesn’t mean you can’t take a fresh look,” Curran said.
Nassau Police Commissioner Pat Ryder did not offer any additional comments.
The decision to revamp the police hiring process from a diversity point of view comes after a recent investigation that proved that since 2012, more than 6,500 people of color applied to the Nassau and Suffolk police forces, but only 67 were hired.
Dennis Jones, police reform advocate and former NYPD detective, is convinced that there is a particular issue the diversity committee should focus its efforts on.
“A lot of times people of color have failed the psychological end of the testing to get on the police department and that is proven to be something that should be where they start first so they can solve that issue,” Jones said.
The diversity committee replied that it plans to study carefully the whole testing process, including psychological parts of the exam.
The Nassau County PBA President also expressed his support for the initiative. The next civil service test is scheduled to take place in Nassau next year.