Curran launches committee to increase diversity in Nassau Police Dept.

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran announced the launch of a Police Diversity Committee last week after a media report highlighted a disparity in the hiring of minority applicants for police departments throughout Long Island.

Curran said the 10-member committee, composed of various community, civic, civil rights and religious leaders would be tasked to aid in the improved diversity of the Nassau County Police Department. The committee, she said, would file recommendations on how diversity can be improved throughout the department ahead of the next police officer civil service exam sometime in 2022.

“My administration is committed to increasing diversity in Nassau’s police force and will advocate for the changes we need to accomplish this goal,” Curran said. “I thank the members of the Nassau County Police Diversity Committee for their commitment to police reform.”

Since 2012, the Nassau and Suffolk Police Departments hired just 67 out of the pool of 6,539 Black applicants, according to the findings. The number of Black applicants who choose to sit for Nassau County written exams fell from 2,055 in 2012 to 1,213 in 2018, according to the findings. From 2012 to 2018, according to Newsday, only 36 of the 2,508 total Black applicants were hired by the county’s police department. In the past 20 years, the number of Black officers in the county’s police department fell from 110 to 103, according to the findings.

 

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