Summary: The Importance Of Sensitivity Training

According to the ACS or American Community Survey, there are roughly 42.4 million immigrants in the United States as of 2014. When this number is combined with their U.S. born children, the number jumps to approximately 81 million people which accounts for roughly 25-26% of the total population in the United States. With immigrants and their children accounting for roughly one fourth of the total population, it only makes sense that our law enforcement officials are trained to properly deal with these many different cultures. This type of training is known as either sensitivity training or cultural diversity training. Sensitivity training focuses on three things which are gaining an understanding of the various cultures in society, learning

to recognize their cultural differences, and gaining respect for these differences. As with all types of training, there are obstacles that must be dealt with especially since this type of training involves both the community and law enforcement officers. Of course both failures and successes are expected when it comes to implementing these training programs, but all of which are important and necessary when it comes to improving the relationship between the community and law enforcement officers especially when it come to the immigrant population.
In order to fully grasp this concept of sensitivity training, it must first be defined. Sensitivity training as defined by the Business Dictionary is “Training designed to make people more aware of group dynamics and their own behavior, interpersonal traits, and roles within a group” (“Business Dictionary” n.d.). When it comes to this type of training for law enforcement officers, it should include four basic aspects. The first aspect consists of becoming aware of one’s own cultural influences which includes the individuals own experiences, family background, and the individual’s upbringing. The second aspect consists of developing an understanding of other cultures, which in this case, includes the many diverse cultures that are present in the United States. The third aspect consists of learning a basic level of comprehension of the challenges faced by these many cultures, which includes language barriers, discrimination and racism, among many other challenges. The Fourth and final aspect is acquiring skills that are needed I order to properly address these differences, which includes having more patience, and learning how to communicate with others who do not speak English. All of these aspects are integrated within sensitivity training with the goal of improving community-police relations.
With that being said, there are many organizations within the United States, and outside the United States that offer this type of training. One sensitivity training program that I found was offered by an organization called ADL or the Anti-Defamation League. This organization was created in the year 1913 in response to growing anti-Semitism, but has evolved into combating all forms of injustice within the United States as well as internationally. This specific organization offers anti-bias training for law enforcement officers, and has worked with the FBI, DEA, and the New York State Police among many other police departments across the U.S. Their training focuses on seven different aspects. Firstly, the training includes examining different stereotypes that both the community has about certain cultures, and stereotypes that are held by law enforcement officials. The reason why they have participants in the program review these stereotypes is to show them how having those, make the officer less effective when carrying out the law. The reason being that the officers make assumptions about the situation based off of their own preconceived notions, rather than based off of the present facts. Secondly, this training focuses on is the examination of perceptions held by the participant, and the perception held by others about the participant. The reason for this is due to the fact that policing involves perception and discretion, and both have a major impact on how effective a cop is at doing his/her job. If a police officer presents himself, or herself in an assertive yet friendly manner, the person will perceive that cop as less of a threat, but if the police officer presents him/herself in an aggressive and assertive manner, then that may escalate thing before either one can say a word. The same goes for how an officer perceives people, but there is more to it because an officer may also have preconceived notions about specific ethnic groups that may hinder him from fully assessing the situation correctly. Thirdly, the training is based off of observations and experiences with these different cultures. If the officer is exposed to the many different cultures within society, and has his own experience within them, then he will be better equipped to handle future encounters. Fourthly, this type of training will have discussions about the negative effects that both discrimination, and prejudice has on these diverse cultures. This is important because it gives police officers the knowledge to confront these issues. Fifthly, the training will examine how diversity training like this one will make the more effective officers. It will explain to them how they will gain the skills needed to properly address the many diverse cultures. Sixthly, trainers will create specific situations that will reinforce cooperation. This includes cooperation from other officers and from the community. Lastly, this training will equip these officers and participants with the knowledge and skills they need to successfully serve the community as a whole and individual immigrant communities.
Through this training, law enforcement officials hope to address the many issues the public has with law enforcement officers when it comes to cultural sensitivity. A major issue officers want to address is the lack of education for both officers and the public when it comes on how to deal with one another. Immigrants that enter the United States come from other countries that may have different forms of law enforcement, and different ways of implementing laws. Along with that these immigrants may have had terrible past experiences with law enforcement officers back in their homeland. As a result, they may be fearful of officers, and more hesitant to reach out to them. On the other side, law enforcement officials may not be educated when it comes to the composition of the community he is patrolling. As a result he may not have the proper tool to help the people within these communities. Take for example, if the officer does not know that the dominant language in a specific community is Spanish for example, and the officer only knows English, he will not be able to effectively communicate and work with them. This not only puts the public in danger, but the officer in danger as well because there is a language barrier between them. This is why cultural diversity training is so important because it equips them men and women who serve and protect these communities with the right skills to do their job effectively.
There are also obstacles that must be faced when dealing with this type of training.

This includes whether or not police departments feel that this type of training is necessary. Sometimes police departments will not offer this type of training until and unless they are convinced that it is actually needed. They are sometimes unwilling to make the commitment to spend money, time and personnel to accomplish this. In cases like this, cultural sensitivity training should be made mandatory for every police department that way there is no longer the factor of trying to convince administrators and supervisors of its importance. Another obstacle is gauging how well officers grasped the information and skills during training, and how that will convert into how effective they work out in the field. An easy way to explain this would be to compare it to a college course. Student A gets an A as his overall grade for the course, while student B receives a C as his overall grade for the course. Both students pass the course and seem to have some knowledge about what was taught. If these were officers, both would be allowed to work out in the field, but whether or not the officer that scored higher actually does better than the other officer how scored lower is yet to be found for two reasons. Firstly, being able to pass exams with high scores does not necessarily mean that they comprehend more, it may mean that they are better at memorization and test taking. On the other had

comprehension may not be that large of a factor because the officer has to be willing to actually use the knowledge gained which is up to his discretion. Another obstacle that cultural diversity training faces is the debate about equality when it comes to who gets trained. Some officers may argue that it is unfair to force them to undergo this type of training to improve their relationship with the public, but not offer the same type of training to the public to improve their relationship with officers.
Just like with any type of training, there will be some type of failure, which is to be expected.

The type of failures to take into consideration would be the ones where citizens are injured or killed by law enforcement officers due to a misunderstanding of their cultural differences. Two cases will be looked at where officers were unprepared for the situations they were in. The first case involves the shooting of a San Francisco resident that went by the name Jose. Officers responded to a report that a homeless man (Jose) was on the sidewalk wielding a large 10-12 inch kitchen knife. Officers reported to the scene where they repeatedly told the man to drop the knife. During this time the man was walking back and forth obviously confused about the situation. When the man refused to follow orders and drop the knife, the police shot beanbags at him in the hopes that he would drop the weapon, but he did not. The officers then opened fire with their guns and shot the man multiple times. He was then rushed to the hospital where he later died. Witnesses said that the man’s first language was Spanish and that he knew very little English which they believed to be the reason why he did not drop the knife because the officer was yelling in English. Officers reported that they only shot the man after he lunged at them with the knife. The question that remains is that could this have turned out differently if these officers were able to communicate with him in Spanish? The second case

involves an elderly Indian man visiting Madison, Alabama from India to help his developmentally delayed grandson. Officers responded to a report of a suspicious person (Mr. Patel) who was walking up driveways and looking into garages. When police arrived to the scene Mr. Patel tried to tell them that he did not speak English and began reaching into his pocket. Officers then conducted a pat down at which time Mr. Patel tried to pull away. The officers then threw him onto the ground which left Patel partially paralyzed. Since the incident He needed spinal fusion surgery to repair the damage to his back. Both of these are prime examples of how cultural diversity training, or lack of it causes incidents like this to occur, and every time they occur it is a failure. The reason for this is because there is a miscommunication between the citizen and the police officer and whether it is a language barrier or a cultural practice, police officers should be trained to handle each situation properly.
On the other side of this, cultural diversity training also has its successes. A major success of this type of training can be seen in the WINGS program which was created by the Refugee Resettlement Office in Davenport, Iowa. The WINGS program was created in response to the local Vietnamese gang’s terrorization of the community. The community was afraid of the police and did not know how to appropriately communicate with them, and many crimes were left unreported. As a result The Refugee Resettlement Office reached out to members of the community, and to law enforcement officials in order to come together to educate the local Vietnamese community about how the officers could help them and about how to prevent certain crimes from happening again. Law enforcement officials even went as far as hiring a bilingual officer just for the specific purpose of acting as an advocate for the community. This officer was taught the language, and was given cultural diversity training in order to do his job more effectively. The community now has a working relationship with the police department, and the special officer has even taken on the job of arranging for court translations. Since then, the officer has made the community a safe place to live. This highlights the many successes of this type of training which are increased communication between officers and the public, an increase in the amount of crimes reported, and cooperation between the public and officers to stop crime in local neighborhoods.
Cultural diversity training should be made mandatory for all police departments for the fact that it makes officers more effective at their job. Not only that, but it also increases the security of both the public and the officers so we would no longer have cases like the one in Alabama. Policing should not be a guessing game where officers have to decipher what an individual is saying because they don’t speak the same language, and if there is something that can be done to fix that issue it should be done. This type of training like the type that was used in the WINGS program where both the community and officers received training should be used all over the country.