Remember in 2019 when LAPD’s recruiting ads ran on Breitbart? I’ve been trying to get some information about this and related topics since then but with very little success. First I asked LAPD. LAPD told me that they didn’t handle their own advertising1 and that I should talk to the City of LA Personnel Department.
I sent Personnel a public records act request in early October 2019 and, despite four followups, they haven’t responded yet. So I don’t have news on the Breitbart thing yet but the other day I got some records relating to other aspects of LAPD hiring:
⦿ LAPD Pass rates — LAPD recruit pass/fail rates broken down by race and gender from March 2019 through June 2020. Also available as a spreadsheet.
⦿ Personnel Department Public Safety Division hiring recap — For the week of September 7, 2020. This has detailed statistics on various LAPD recruiting ad campaigns as well as that week’s pass/fail stats.
⦿ Public Safety Division Presentation — A 41 slide August 2020 presentation to a Police Commission committee about hiring practices. This has essential information about what kinds of ads they run, where they run them, and so on.
So for instance LAPD recruits heavily at HBCUs by advertising but also by sending officers annually to job fairs at Alcorn State, Fayetteville, Grambling, and Southern Universities. They staff tables at Taste of Soul and “barbershop and beauty salon gatherings” and run an “annual hiring seminar at Crenshaw Christian Center.”
They hire influencers to promote recruitment, including Mychal Thompson, Candace Parker, DJ Lezlee, and LZ Granderson. They advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and Pandora, in college papers and on military bases. But they don’t just rely on recruiting.
They continue to adjust eligibility requirements to be able to hire more applicants, for instance “marijuana use and finances.”2 They also changed the psychiatric evaluation to a “rigorous ‘whole person’ assessment” in order to increase the pass rate3 from 61% in 2016 to 70% in 2017.
And they continue to adjust their hiring practices. Right now they’re in the process of “[r]e-imagining select Departmental Interview questions to inquire about candidates’ history of community involvement, volunteer service, and cultural sensitivity.” Not only that but they are considering “Partnering with outside vendor for deeper investigation of candidates’ footprint on social media.”4
There’s a bunch of info on how they’ve modified their hiring practices during COVID, and all kinds of other things. Why not take a look at the PDF itself or JPGs of all 41 pages provided below for viewing convenience!
- I wouldn’t be even a little bit surprised if this turned out to be lie. LAPD Discovery lies all the time, even more than regular cops lie, but I have no evidence that they’re lying so there’s no fight to be had, at least not yet.
- I don’t know the details.
- Hard to see how increasing the LAPD psych assessment pass rate is in any way a good idea.
- It’s hard to see how this practice could possibly help them recruit more candidates. Someone’s social media history isn’t going to convince LAPD to hire them if they weren’t already going to hire them. All this can do is eliminate candidates who wouldn’t have been eliminated without it.
