Despite improvements in individual rights, local institutions frequently reflect or replicate the past discriminatory practices, helping to perpetuate a system of unjust privileges for some and misfortunes for others in significant and subtle ways. As a result, justice and equity assessment are needed for multiple organizations. Equity entails trying to analyze and provide individuals with what they require for their well-being. Systemic equity is a component of organizational culture aimed to create, encourage, and maintain social justice. It is a continuous strategy that enables and repeats equal views, control, assets, approaches, circumstances, behaviors, and outcomes. As such, systemic equity is needed for guaranteeing that women have equal opportunities in the workplace. An example of equity assessment for identifying women’s needs is done in this paper for El Monte Police Department, CA.
The Police Department under survey is situated in California, a state known for its commitment to organizing and implementing equity. However, for years, women have been substantially disadvantaged in law enforcement in the United States. Women had 13.7 percent of front-line occupations, 10.3 percent of managerial roles, and 7.3 percent of high command positions (Engaged Sociology, 2019, para. 2). Isolated, regional police agencies have even lesser female officers generally, with women seldom holding management or appointed leadership roles. These statistics indicate that the recruiting and employment of female police officers has stagnated, giving rise to the concept of a glass ceiling (Chin & Trimble, 2015). This exemplifies how hiring variables and other sexist, cultural attitudes influence the exclusion of women from numerous male-dominated professions.
Since police departments are still regarded as a male-dominated vocation, women are underrepresented in appointed personnel roles. While it is vital for police agencies to have more diverse law enforcement, there is a lack of order to identify the factors that influence women’s chance of entering the police department. Previous research indicates that men and women join the police force for comparable motives. However, there has been little research on the variables that discourage prospective candidates from adopting this career trajectory (Engaged Sociology, 2019). Some people believe that, compared to males, women are much less likely to engage in a police job. However, in Engaged Sociology’s (2019) research, over half of the women showed interest in a law enforcement career. The results may suggest that unconscious bias might lead to the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles in the police.
Unconscious bias is a prejudice that naturally occurs and is prompted by the human brain generating rapid judgments and evaluations of individuals and events, affected by the upbringing, cultural context, and personal observations. Unconscious prejudice can result in (most likely unintentional) discrimination or harassment (Chin & Trimble, 2015). Challenging unconscious prejudice and mitigating its negative impacts is critical for any business since if minorities suffer to secure appointments for senior management positions, they might soon stop applying, believing they are not qualified for such positions when, in reality, they are. If this occurs, the firm will become less inventive, which will have an impact on its performance.
El Monte Police Department’s female staff might experience a similar struggle. Specifically, the organization is located in El Monte, which “has an ethnically diverse and dynamic population with 72% Hispanic, 18% Asian, and 7% White” (El Monte, CA, n.d.-a, para. 1). El Monte’s communal and institutional facilities are improving in response to the city’s rapidly growing population. Many civic improvements are being made in order to offer an appealing and secure prosperous economy. However, there is little information about social improvements and programs, except for independent living for the elderly and fair housing (El Monte, CA, n.d.-a). As for the mentioned organization, El Monte Police Department officers are dedicated to improving the standard of living in the city. The staff of the institution includes and employs both men and women, which could be seen by accessing the brochures and photo reports of the Police Department (El Monte, CA, n.d.-b). Thus, the context and description of the organization suggest that it commits some attention to social equity.
However, a deeper analysis of the El Monte Police Department can assess its equity and justice implementation. As such, there is no emphasis on justice or equity in organizational presentations and papers, only general aims that relate to everybody. The Police Department promotes its activities as inherently necessary to all, with no acknowledgment of unequal effects. Although there is some information that addresses institutional and workplace culture, there is no commitment to equity and diversity (El Monte, CA, n.d.-b). A significant portion of persons on the members and officers reflect the constituency of women. However, it is not clear whether they have leadership positions and what is the retention rate for female workers (El Monte, CA, n.d.-b). Hiring policies are in place and have a formal element, although no specific needs of women are underlined in the blanks (El Monte, CA, n.d.-c). There are no defined methods for measuring success in justice, equality, inclusion-related actions, or inclusion in the company. Thus, the assessment reveals that there are significant equity gaps that might intervene with women’s well-being in the organization.
As a result, several areas that need improvement in terms of justice and equity could be identified. First, there is no framing of equity importance and integration of women’s needs, which is evident from the Police Department’s mission statement and organizational documents. The lack of any indication about the equity value might correlate with discrimination in practice, as well as a sign of no support for women recruited into police. As a consequence, the other issue is the lack of equity on the level of organizational culture, which is supported by the absence of justice assessment and education. Unfortunately, this problem makes it improbable to discover systematic inequity and improve the situation based on the evaluation. Hence, the institution does not recognize possible challenges that women have at work.
Luckily, the situation in El Monte Police Department can be improved in several ways. As such, it is necessary that internal documentation and public institutional descriptions contain explicit, detailed wording and unambiguous definitions of the agency’s justice and equality ideals and aims. A coherent, shared formulation of the ideal workplace culture among employees and the board (which should play a facilitating role) should be established within the framework of behaviors everybody is bound to follow and for which they will be held to account. All job roles and performance evaluation systems must include specific skills and knowledge linked to justice and equity. As a result, the individuals and the organization can discern inequalities and exterminate them to make the team more cohesive.
Several things can be done to address unconscious prejudice in the recruitment of leaders from underrepresented women in police. First, it is essential to inform internal recruits about unconscious bias. People all have unconscious prejudice; however, it is not acceptable to refuse competent applicants from disadvantaged minorities for top positions. Hence, El Monte should ensure that its recruitment agencies understand how to reduce biased reactions when screening applicants for leadership roles so that female applicants have a fair chance of making it to the interviewing process.
All recruiting supervisors should be educated on unconscious prejudice. The recruiting managers must grasp the repercussions of discriminatory practices against female candidates in order to reduce biased reactions while screening, interviewing, and choosing their next leader. Teach interviewers not to judge female applicants on accomplishments. Furthermore, to prevent subconsciously preferring one applicant over another, the Police Department must offer all individuals the same questions in interviews or offer all applicants the same duties. The top management should consider a world in which qualified, female candidates have comparable access to high posts. Next, they should write out everything that appears to be happening inside the business in order to build that great future. Afterwards, they must organize that list and look for immediate wins.
Finally, a plan of implementation of the mentioned practices could be laid out. The first step would be for the board and staff of the El Monte Police Department to acquire knowledge about equity and justice, which could be done through training in six months. Next, the board of the organization can hire a temporary consultant and work collaboratively to create transparent equity and justice goals and values so that to implement them further into the documents and organizational culture. Within three months, the Department should incorporate the defined values in the ethical code, company and public papers, and job description. Finally, the board should install a system of injustice reports and performance evaluations linked with the needs of women to track issues and resolve them, which could be done in five months.
References
Chin, J. L., & Trimble, J. E. (2015). Diversity and leadership (First ed.). SAGE Publications.
El Monte, CA. (n.d.-a). About El Monte. Web.
El Monte, CA. (n.d.-b). Police. Web.
El Monte, CA. (n.d.-c). Recruitment brochure. Web.
Engaged Sociology. (2019). Lack of women in law enforcement. Web.