Police keen to recruit women and ethnic group officers
Tuesday 30th March 2010, 2:29PM BST.
POLICE would welcome applications from under-represented groups in the latest recruitment drive.
Training and development manager Sergeant Jim Bell said more than 120 application packs had been distributed so far and people had until 30 April to declare an interest.
‘We would particularly welcome applications from groups such as female, Portuguese and Latvian, who are currently under-represented in the force,’ he said.
It would not be known how many applicants would be employed until nearer the end of the selection process.
‘As long as the candidates are up to scratch, we would keep them on file anyway,’ said Sgt Bell.
‘We’ve had a very good level of interest and applicants include some people from the finance industry, which might reflect the economic downturn.’
* Application forms are available at www.police-recruitment.com or by telephoning 725111 and asking for the human resources department.
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Wouldn’t it be more suitable for local men to fill these positions, no offence to a woman, but there’s no way you’d be able to tackle large men who are drunk or commit crimes.
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There is an easy way to increase the amount of qualified persons available for work without increasing population – provide opportunities for women who already reside on the island.
There is a huge amount of very educated highly qualified women on the island who would be available for full-time employment if only there were a small amount of before and after school care. In most cases a full-time nanny isnt economically viable and not everyone has able bodied parents living on the island to help out. Its a simple and high quality solution which has been embraced by many a 1st world nation. Why not Guernsey? Just a thought.
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Wil
The Hospital tried that.
They got the costings all wrong but that doesn’t make it a bad idea.
I suppose it would be down to Commerce & Environment to raise the matter.
Not Deputy Hadley of course as he tends to throw his rattle out of the pram.
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GG
Not too many local men speak Portuguese or Latvian
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Being a female GG I’m surprised you do not advocate equal rights. You also refer to them as “you” which would make me think you aren’t being too truthful in previous posts or indeed this one about your gender.
There is much more to policing than just breaking up drunken men’s fights. There are also a number of drunken brawls started up by women. We have females in the armed forces – what’s the difference?
I myself used to be a pub manager in Bournemouth at 23 – I managed to break up many a fight with drunkards. It’s not impossible, it’s actually quite feasible and in some instances preferable. It’s not all about brute strength GG.
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Wil….what the heck is a ‘Ist world nation’??
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GG, your narrow minded view of policing does not surprise me. And no, it wouldn’t necessarily ‘be more suitable for local men’.
I think Wil makes a valid point about the child care issue.
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GG – I am sure no woman has taken offence to your comment as they probably realise it was just one of those silly, uneducated, sexist comments
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Aren’t these sort of anti-racist measures as racist as racism itself?
The same goes for sexism.
Of course, this wouldn’t be in the name of statistics, no Sir.
Perhaps the police will actively seek to recruit homosexuals into the force similar to above lest they promote anti-homosexualism.
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Lynnie
Don’t boast too much about breaking up drunken brawls in your Bournemouth bar. Far better to examine how they got so drunk on your premises that they resorted to fighting.
I’m not certain but I believe the local Police Chief has the power to close a bar when it can be shown that staff have continued to serve a person who is already intoxicated.
If he used that power a couple of times a year life in Town at weekends would be much more peaceful. What manager would risk a week’s takings ?
Now I’m waiting for the publicans to claim that today’s youth get tanked up at home on cheap Supermarket booze before going out on the Town.
So what? If they are too drunk to serve don’t serve them. SIMPLES
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Actually GG tackling a person of whatever size or gender is not about a person being male or female (and their supposed strength), it is all about training. Given the right training a man or women can easily control or subdue a person much larger than themselves.
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@Ray, deport the foreigners that are here to cause trouble? All sorted, no need to employ foreign police officers. I for one couldn’t take a foreign police officer seriously, “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you may later rely on in court” I’d just start laughing when they come out with some foreign language.
I’d also like to add, why are the police being racist to local males? Surely they should be promoting no racism, and be accepting all types of ethnicities. It’s like saying “We have enough white, local males. Foreign women only please!”
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GG – We need women in the police force as well as men; after all about half of the population are women! If I were a woman I wouldn’t be too happy about having a man searching me for example.
I know women more than capable of breaking up a fight between men, like Lynnie says it’s not all about brute force. Some women are able to diffuse potentially inflammatory situations far better than some men, whose confrontational style can at times be antagonistic.
James – what you describe is known as ‘positive discrimination’ where employers are told they must have a certain number of ‘minority’ employees, thus effectively discriminating against the majority.
In the ideal world, recruitment would be about getting the best candidate for the job irrespective of race, gender etc etc. Sadly we don’t live in the ideal world and judging by the comments I regularly read on this board prejudice (especially xenophobia) is alive and kicking on Guernsey.
Unfortunately there are also a few who play the ‘discrimination’ card as soon as they don’t get their own way….the thought that there was someone more suitable for the job doesn’t seem to cross their minds – it must have been racist.
Personally I would welcome a few applications from Portuguese and Latvians: then if they are the best candidates for the job, sign ‘em up!
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Clearly the thought behind the proposal is to represent minorities in the community by recruiting people who have got the culture in common with inhabitants, and perhaps speaks the same language.
Wil good point. Also these types of jobs will probably stray from the standard 5 day week 9-5 which in itself will be more flexible for mothers. There does need to be a higher representation of females in the police. There are many sensitive issues that the police have to deal with such as rape, domestic abuse, child protection etc. Victims may feel more comfortable dealing with these issues with a female officer.
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GG
Try wathching some of the Police programs on TV it shows how well Police Women can handle themselves
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Perhaps GG hasn’t seen the ‘teeny tiny police men’ they make nowadays ;) Some of them could fit in my pocket! I also swear the one I saw the other day was wearing his father’s uniform!
Seriously, following on from Wil’s comment, I think that if the Home Dept had some jobshare posts they could get the range of the police officers they needed. There are locally qualified people that speak different languages.
Its good to see that 120 people were interested in joining up. Perhaps we will finally have a full complement of police officers and the Island’s crime rate will drop!
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Please do not confuse the above Bart with this Bart.
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I would not have thought it made any difference what gender or race was recruited,if they are up to the job!, I did notice that there was no mention of recruiting disabled police officers !, surely we cannot make the disabled feel as there is no place in the force for them ?.
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@Ray
It was not my intention to boast and perhaps ‘brawl’ was the wrong word. Physical altercations were usually quite minimal but unfortunately being a publican in an area that is well known for it’s high student population and stag party central disagreements happened often, usually when we being stringent “what do you mean I can’t come in!” etc etc.
Several times we found drugs/alcohol (bottle) found on people after they were in the premises. Of course we had strict rules about serving anyone who appeared drunk, however, that did not stop their mate being the one who was buying them all the beer and they were sat in a corner somewhere slowly pickling themselves.
Many of the altercations were because we were stringent and either cease to serve people or refuse them entry therefore abiding by the law.
I would never put myself or ANY of my bar staff in danger for the sake of takings. What a silly remark to make.
Ray it’s very easy to tell people how to do their job better by knowing nothing about it.
However, I don’t want this to turn into (as so many other stories on this forum have) a case of I’m right you’re wrong. My point was perhaps better explained by Paul Le Page.
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BTW, I’m not sexist at all. I think something similar to this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216471/Policewoman-banned-babysitting-friend-says-children.html
Would work well, I don’t know if you remember this story, quite a while ago now. But I think their child arrangements worked well, and perhaps this is something the police could look into?
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gsybloke
“Given the right training a man or women can easily control or subdue a person much larger than themselves”.
You been watching to many bruce lee films :).
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Why are the police once again looking to take on more staff??? Not that long ago they were all but fully staffed? Surely we need to be addressing why there is such a high turnover? Too many officers are leaving the force, due to things like lack of appreciation from large parts of the community, unsociable working hours and reasonably poor pay compared to what they can potentially earn doing a 9-5. Its about time we looked to reward those that do a service for the community and encourage them to stay and do the job they trained so hard (and expensively) to do, and it doesnt matter if they are black, white, green, short tall, male, female, or ginger, Guernsey, English, Latvian, Portuguese or Welsh!
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GG:
Well done, you’ve done it again! You should also know the below cut and paste from your post does not exist in Guernsey:
““You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you may later rely on in court””
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GG, what are you talking about? You have lost everyone here and have no argument. What has that story got to do with you saying that ladies make terrible Police Officers? Sounds to me like some self preservation after you realised what you were saying was a load of nonsense.
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bcb – you haven’t seen kids mate!
I’ve seen grown men and women subdued and controlled by a 5 year old screaming ‘not that one, I want THAT one!’ lol
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Does this mean that our current police force are likely to discriminate against these minorities?
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I never said they didn’t make very good police officers, but I would like to see one take down a large, 6ft tall drunk man. I’d like to see which one would win.
It was kind of in reply to others, that they could share babysitting with other police officers.
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GG
Lynnie has the solution to tackling the 6ft drunk man.
You serve him a couple more drinks till he’s totally paralytic.Then you help him outside and leave the Police to pick up the pieces
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How many Guernsey people are police officers in Latvia or Portugal.
Why not imploy more older local people for community policing which has been promised for over 20 years?
There is becomming larger unemployment in this Island which is going to cost us dear in the future.
It appears some people want us to go down the road with the UK, which is becoming a total mess.
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I think we need a Mosque to encourage ethnic diversity.
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Well said Equet, why should we employ foreign people when we have locals who are unemployed, very well said!
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@Ray
Read my post again and lets move away from the personal vendetta. No publican forces drink down someone’s throat they have to understand that they are responsible for their own actions, yet, there WERE measures put in place and as I stated previously many of the confrontations were due to refusal of admittance.
@Equet I think the reason would be that there isn’t particularily a high number of Guernsey people in Latvia or Portugal, however, pretty much everyone under 35 speaks English as it’s taught as second language in schools/universities therefore I’m sure their police force are more than capeable with dealing with the language problems.
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Andy, I hope you were joking!
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Lynnie
You started it. You invaded Poland !
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Equet:
You miss the point of representation. How many people from Guernsey live in Latvia? Do we need representation in the police over there!? The fact is, the are lots of Portuguese and Latvian people here, and the police are intelligent enough to see that to police communities they have to represent and understand the communities.
If local people want to apply they can, so GG’s point is moot (again). There is no suggestion however that Portuguese and Latvian applicants will be given housing licences on the back of a position in the police, therefore they too would be considered local.
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hahahaha, didn’t they invade the UK? (covers her head from the potential onslaught)
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Many years ago anyone who was not local and ended up in court for a misdemeanor was told to leave the island for at least three years,also saving us the cost of placing them in our prison while at the same time keeping down the number of undesirables. Anyway why do we have so many foreigners here? The laws that are supposed to control immigration don’t work and never have, as I have always said.
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Don’t try to laugh it off Lynnie
The truth is there for all to see in Wickepedia
Luftwaffe Oberleutnant Heinrich Ernst Von Lynnie fired the first shots of WW11 as he strafed a moving train near the Polish village of Lubniewice
Now was that you or was that not you ?
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I think the last thing the island needs is a bunch of our young dole heads roped into cop duty.
We would have drug runners running the island within weeks if EW house on a thursday is anything to go by.
If the Latvians and Portuguese are good enough, skilled enough and fit enough, then they are more suitable to do the job than a good proprotion of our current unemployed.
Police work is a skilled profession, you shouldnt be allowed in to the force just because someone was born here.
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I got up a little late
Did I sleep through world wars 3-10??
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Yes Steve-O
WW 11 with the tagline ‘this time it’s personal’
Very good point Dave Haslam
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Bloody Wickepedia !
I should have gone straight to Wikipedia
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Lynnie
every single publican who has ever held a licence in Guernsey has served booze to customers who have had too much! end of story.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people “out of their minds” in guernsey pubs.
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@Kevin
Apart from just having a go at me I don’t see how this is relevent to the actual story. I also doubt very much that you have the information to backing up what you are stating and are in fact generalising. Wandering round town on a Saturday night the first weekend students are back does not make you an expert on the matter.
Oh the poor poor drunk people it’s all the pub’s fault. Hmmm…
Back to the issue on hand, I think it’s a step in the right direction, but agree that perhaps they should be looking at why their turn over rate is so high.
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lynnie
dont take things so personally I dont know you from Adam but most folks who post on here will know what I was saying. I have no intention of being the oldest swinger in town so don’t go to town drinking. It’s simple if people are drunk don’t serve them. I have no intention of touring local bars with you to back up my case as I know I’m right.
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Lynnie
I agree with you, pub’s don’t get people drunk, people get themselves drunk. They also make themselves fat, get themselves stoned or high, give themselves lung cancer through smoking etc etc.
Unfortunately a considerable proportion of people are unwilling to accept the personal responsibility so try to shift the blame onto others, whether that be pubs, supermarkets, drug dealers, fast food outlets, the State etc etc.
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What does “under-represented” mean?
Have they ensured that all nations are represented accurately within the force?
After all, there are several dogs, but ever seen a police cat?
Haven’t they heard of interpreters?
Aggressive male cops should be a thing of the past. All trainees are now tought to find their feminine side, as it were.
As for a six-foot, twenty stone drunk up against some small, sober, well-trained PC of either sex, well my money’d be on the one armed with mace and a nightstick, with a vanload of mates round the corner.
Two hundred coppers is about three per thousand population. So they only need about a dozen locals, eh?
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Bob:
I’m sure you don’t need the term ‘under represented’ explaining to you.
What you don’t seem to grasp however is the concept of proper representation, and how that amounts to much, much more than simply being able to speak the same language. It’s about understanding cultural, religious, and language differences.
A classic example is the Englishman who speaks the same language as most Guerns. Would a Guern honestly say that the Englishman understands his island? For a start, I suspect the Guern would have to remind people that he is not English! The same can be said for Latvians & Portuguese. There are so many people of those heritages here that the police are duty bound to ensure they are in a position to police them, and understand their cultures.
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Oh dear GG, you really have no idea what you are talking about! As already pointed out, the caution that you’ve obviously heard on The Bill doesn’t exist in Guernsey. And as for women taking on “large men who are drunk or commit crimes”, how narrow minded and naive! It’s not a case of size or strength at all. Please get your facts right and at least do a little research before commenting on subjects you do not understand.
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Truth Man – the Police need to understand (a little of) their culture. That can be done by educating anyone fit to be an officer. Its our laws (and culture) they are policing, and that can be taught to any of the so-called ethnic minorities we are talking about.
I deal with people from all over the world – different cultures and languages, without the need to employ someone of their cultural background. Hell, I can even deal with women.
Proper representation is achieved by utilising the most professional officers available, and not going down the road of tokenism. A larger proportion of female officers would be great. However, where they had a handful of a particular minority, the chances are they’d be called away from something serious to deal with a minor domestic involving their particular community, or sex. It would hardly be fair on them career-wise.
The Police have to take the best of what’s available, and as long as it causes no operational problems, I don’t care what sex, colour or creed they are. The law should be policed fairly, without fear of favour. This smacks a lot of favour – would I have the right to a local copper to nick me and empathise with me from my own ethnic background? Or to give me victim support? I doubt it. They’d have had to have given the training to one of their “minorities” to make sure their “communities” had “representation”.
Does a Madeiran, through sharing the same language, fully understand someone from Lisbon? Someone from Cork the Ulsterman? The Russians and the Latvians don’t get on.
There are many, many problems with this approach. They mustn’t get in the way of good order and common sense.
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American weighing in: Wow, what great discussions. Going to print up and use as source material for my cross-cultural psych class! Here in the States police are required to complete diverse community relations training in order to keep their jobs, is this true in your area?
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Why should the police employ non-locals? There are enough locals unemployed to pick from. Most jobs should be offered to locals first and only employ migrants if a suitable person cannot be found within a reasonable time.
Also, can someone tell me how so many migrants workers can get work and afford to live here? How did they get housing licenses?
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Molly – I think they do, but I do not know how intensive that might be.
Are your community relations courses targeted to the (local) areas policed, or general courses applied throughout the Borough/County/State/Country as a whole?
We are a tiny island pop. 64,000, with maybe a half-dozen (and increasing) “ethnic” stereotypes.
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Chris Card:
A migrant worker can only acquire a short term housing licence if their employer has shown evidence to support that they have tried to recruit locally. This usually means giving the job centre number of the advert along with details of whom has applied or a copy of the advert in the GP. They must give all details (par names) on people who have applied and why they are not acceptable.
Housing will generally grant a short term licence if they feel that the role is of benefit to the island and that there are no available candidates with the skill set needed.
I’ve had short term licence applications declined even when I have showed proof of advertising and details of applicants (if any) that applied so housing are definitely putting the pressure back on to the employer to look at other means of getting the staff they want. Training, apprenticeship etc etc.
Short term licences do not grant dependants status to live and work in Guernsey therefore they are unable to bring their family/spouses.
More specialised roles can require an essential licence which is generally 5 years in duration and at the most 15 years. However I think it’s generally quite difficult to chuck people off the island who have completed the term and is sometimes extended to 15 years therefore giving them resident status. Even after 5 years there’s a human rights element to it and if fought would have a good chance of winning. Essential licences can enable children/spouses to be brought over. They are, however, given details of what property they can rent/buy (TRP) depending on their salary therefore ensuring that a good chunk of their hard earned cash is put back in to the system. So they can’t just go and rent a cheap bedsit somewhere.
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Bob:
I am afraid to say your thinking is not the type of thinking that has driven policing forward in recent years. Would you say, for example, an all white Metropolitan Police force could police it’s diverse communities? Or could an all Christian police force understand, for example, Muslim residents? Equally, do you think an all male force would understand, or be able to represent the whole population?
Do you honestly believe one can learn about the diversity different cultures offer from a lesson or a book?!
The answer to proper representation and good policing is to do exactly what Guernsey Police are trying to do.
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Truth Man – all police personnel have to learn the laws and procedures from courses. Those recruits whose first language is other than English will have to learn our laws and procedures which evolved from a “Western Christian” moral standpoint. Their own cultural attitudes may be different – their cultural or religious stance on issues such as homosexuality, or on the punishment of crime by the chopping off of a hand may cause them all sorts of conflicts – will they be required to learn our culture? Of course they will. But they may have to moderate their own. They will also have to learn about the cultures of the other minorities, else they’ll be pretty useless as police officers.
Yes, you can learn about aspects of other cultures from a book – some minority recruits will have to do so in their second or third language. Oddly, books have been used in education for many years now, with some success.
All officers need to be able to deal with the majority of incidents likely to arise, and with the majority of people they are likely to encounter. If they are only able to deal effectively with a tiny minority of the community, they have no place on the force.
If that’s the thinking that somehow holding policing back, then do explain where it is you’d rather policing went. Would you prefer each sub-community to police itself, perhaps, in accordance with their own customs and beliefs?
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Bob:
I’m afraid to say that your point is simply not correct. Please look to much larger forces throughout the world who recognise the importance of the police representing their communities. Are you trying to say they are all wrong, and you are right?
It is not about being policed in accordance with ones own cultural beliefs with regards to execution of the law. The fact that you think that means (I am sorry to say) that you are simply way, way behind police forces with regards to knowledge and understanding of diversity issues.
To provide you with further information on the importance of representative policing I would strongly advise you do some internet based research. It’s all out there – you just need to know it to understand it!
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Bob:
Further, I have just seen your reply to Molly where you refer to the ‘half a dozen ethnic stereotypes’.
The fact that you consider only half a dozen people on this island to be in the group in need of diverse representation shows your lack of understanding in the area.
This is not about ‘ethnic stereotypes’. This is about diversity. Please, please do some research – it might genuinely help you to understand the subject.
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Bob:
Take a look at this for example:
http://www.met.police.uk/dcf/diversity_s.htm
Now, I know London has a significantly different demographic than Guernsey, however in our own way Guernsey has many diversity issues. Diversity is not simply about skin colour, it is about; race, religion, sex, age, sexuality, to name a few. In fact, those labels date back to when we talked about diversity ‘strands’. Thinking has now moved away from these ‘strands’ and now we encompass/embrace “difference” in the name of diversity.
Clearly, when you consider this Guernsey Police has an obligation (like it or not) to ensure they represent their community as much as possible.
Personally, I see this as being positive – why does it cause some people a problem?
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…’POLICE would welcome applications from under-represented groups in the latest recruitment drive’…
well, how about employing a few chavs and single teen mums to assist with some community policing?
I can see it now, new uniform and kit – hoodie/tracky bottoms, mobile/fags – chatting away on their phones as they hack down the Kev run at 60 on a Saturday to ensure that no one’s car is faster or more bling than theirs…or perhaps shuffling up and down the High Street on benny day with a flashing blue light attached to the front of their push chair, comparing notes with their non police friends to see which of them share dads, and advising them as to how many more kids they need before they qualify for a bigger States house…
now THERE’S a plan-!
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Truth man – try reading what I post, rather than what you think I post.
Recruiting by positive discrimination does cause problems, whether you like the fact or not. Take a look at the Dizaei problem. UK may have handled it badly, but positive discrimination and a desire to appear “diverse” ultimately made the problems far worse.
Guernsey Police force has no “obligation” to reflect the make-up of the community. It’s obligation is to police fairly, utilising the most professional officers available. Clearly, it is desirable to work toward diversity, but equally clearly not at the expense of the prime objective.
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Bob:
I did read your posts, all of them, fully.
The fact that you quote the Ali Dizaei case to support your point again shows that your understanding of the topic is insufficient to be valid or relevant. Ali Dizaei was a manipulative crook who happened to be in a number of minority groups within the Met. He is not representative of those groups, and does not in any way undermine the work the Met has undertaken to promote diversity and representation.
I accept you have your own opinion, however that does not alter the fact your opinion on this topic is based on a lack of knowledge and insight and as a result, understanding of the subject.
At it’s most basic level, can you not see that your opinion is opposed to those of the whole of modern day policing?! Does that not tell you something?
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Bob:
One final point. You stated “Clearly, it is desirable to work toward diversity, but equally clearly not at the expense of the prime objective.”
On the basis of that statement it is clear to me that in essence we now seem to agree with each other. I have never suggested standards should be sacrificed to allow any public body to represent the community. Therefore, via different routes we seem to have arrived at the same conclusion. Would that be fair to say?
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