Lengthening the Stride: Employing Peace Officers from Newly Arrived Ethnic Groups

摘要

This book is one result of a formal multi-year partnership between the Office of Refugee Resettlement (part of the US Department of Health and Human Services) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (part of the US Department of Justice) to explore and help improve the relationship between law enforcement and refugees who have resettled in the U.S. It also reflects a dynamic informal partnership among sites funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement; law enforcement agencies; and refugees, immigrants, and other community residents throughout the nation who are working together to help improve law enforcement's delivery of services to all members of the community. An earlier product of this federal partnership, Building and Crossing Bridges: Refugees and Law Enforcement Working Together, provides a clear blueprint for a cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship between refugee and law enforcement communities. But cooperation and harmony, though necessary, are not sufficient to meet the goal of improving safety in all neighborhoods. Communities found that if law enforcement agencies are to serve and protect the entire community effectively, it is important that they reflect the values and composition of the communities they serve. Lengthening the Stride takes the newcomer/police partnership a step further, laying out ways that law enforcement can recruit, hire, and retain members of ethnic minority populations. Because the Federal agencies partnership originally focused on the many refugees from Southeast Asian countries who arrived in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s, this book draws chiefly on specific examples from the Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, and Hmong communities to address the important opportunities, benefits, issues, challenges, and innovative solutions found in hiring officers from these refugee groups.