If researchers from MIT can craft a solution to Boston’s decades-old student assignment problem, then it’s time to turn the academics loose on Boston’s second-thorniest problem: How to ensure adequate minority representation on the city’s police force.
Perhaps the professors could convince the city to jettison the Civil Service police exam altogether. The entry level test works OK for measuring basic reading comprehension and reasoning skills. But it doesn’t effectively measure judgment and communication skills.
Comments
Mr Harmon is presenting arguments that have outlived their credibility. What he is suggesting is eliminating civil service and placing hiring in the hands of politicians. Civil service was created to eliminate political patronage. Mr Harmon is suggesting that Boston would do a good job with giving out jobs for police officers on the basis of political ideology such as affirmative action. Is there anyone who thnks that system would be beneficial. Mr Harmon suggestions for hiring someone based on his race contradicts ideas of fair and equitable treatment. It sounds good but it seeks to remedy a situation by using methods that we are suppossed to condemn. If we accept or encourage a commmunity standard that rejects, resists or is more comfortable with police offciers of the same racial background, what standard should we accept in communities like Weston, Wayland and Wellesley The only color standard that police department should be intetrested in is blue!
masssgt ---this would be true if the civil service exam had not been transformed from something "fair and equitable" to another form of political patronage. What may have started out as a clean platform has been tampered with through political lobbying to something that keeps most police and fire stations white and male. First you have lineage jobs (just how did that 24 y/o son of a firefighter caught buying heroin on the job get his job?!) and then you have veteran's preference which favor DISABLED veterans over able bodied non-veterans. Why is it that veterans have any preference for these jobs at all if what we want is the most qualified.
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Just another example of how we keep minorites down!
Wow:
"viewed police officers more like occupying troops than problem solvers."
and
"It is an axiom of modern policing that urban departments should reflect the communities they serve."
I'm a white guy, live in Southie. There are Black cops who serve in C-6. Some of whom I have gone to for help, and at least one who gave me a moving violation (admittedly deserved).
What would happen if I said: "cops in southie should be white". That would be racist.
How about "white cops should patrol the gentrified areas...and black cops should patrol the public housing"
Even more racist (but fits the axiom, no??)
But its okay to say "cops should be black in dorchester".
Complete nonsense and drivel.
Reverse discrimination is still discrimination. (yes, yes, yes it is).
The fundamental premise of the article is that Veterans are taking the majority of the slots in the Boston Police Department, leaving little room for Minorities......
Does this mean that Minorities from Boston are Not serving in the US military, in proportion to their numbers?
If that is true, then why should they believe they should have equal slots in the Police Department?
If you think you can be a police officer, then you should be willing to join the military, serve your country, get valuable training, get money for education, and then, several years later, be an even Better Boston Police Officer..... Indeed, most of the work of today's military in Iraq and Afghanistan is "International Police work". Dealing with people with different ethnic backgrounds, in Their neighborhoods. Sounds like the perfect training ground for future Boston police officers
but is serving in the military perfect training for being a police officer? Where's the proof????
Surely there must be many minority-veterans who would also like to be police officers. Aren't they applying?
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