Syracuse Police Department Chief Kenton Buckner’s recent calls for community help in recruiting a more diverse class of police officers has the potential to serve as an asset to the community.

In an era of post broken-window style policing, it is of paramount importance that communities are able to trust their city’s police department. Broken-windows policing refers to a model of policing that target minor crimes such as public drinking or vandalism to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness meant to prevent more serious crime.

The style has been criticized for creating a system of general distrust between the citizens of a community and law enforcement — a distrust that continues to manifest in today’s society.

Diversifying the police department so that it more closely resembles the demographics of the city it serves is a promising strategy to promote community trust.

Partnership programs like at the Public Service Leadership Academy at Fowler High School are critical to making Buckner’s goal a reality and ensuring that diversity goals will continue to be met. Even though graduates cannot apply to the Syracuse Police Department until they are 19 years old, programs like these create paths to employment for diverse groups considering entering police work.

Providing young adults who might not typically be interested in becoming officers ways to explore police work and public defense not only expands options for prospective officers, but it also helps guarantee that the police department has a new generation of diverse individuals feeding into the ranks.

These features work together to bolster community trust in the police department as representative of the ages, backgrounds and racial makeup of present-day Syracuse — an ambitious, but crucial development in today’s society.

Kailey Norusis is a freshman English literature and history major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at kmnorusi@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter @Knorusis.

Published on October 16, 2019 at 12:47 am

Contact Kailey: kmnorusi@syr.edu