For the past several months, the buzzword that has created a war of words, battles between members of the Fort Smith Board of Directors and ongoing maneuvering to try and get around the Civil Service Commission in filling supervisory positions has been “diversity.”
While Webster’s Dictionary defines”diversity” as a range of different things, that definition doesn’t seem to fit when it cones to the concentrated effort to “diversify” the Fort Smith Police Department.
In the past several months, 100% of the call for diversity in the department has focused on the lack of sworn African American officers.
With only one black officer currently on the payroll, representing a paltry 0.73% of the sworn employees, the lack of “diversity” when it comes to African -Americans on the force is certainly lacking when compared to the five county Fort Smith Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is 3.46% of the total population.
But the focus on diversity has not been as keen on other aspects on the number of city employees in various other department, including he fire department, street department and other departments.
And the focus on diversity within the police department has been solely on the lack of African-Americans, due in part that Chief Nathaniel Clark and city director Andre Good have place an emphasis on the subject.
But what about other aspects of diversity hiring throughout the city?
In July, inside Fort Smith compared the situation with he FSPD to that of the Fort Smith Police Department. At that point, based on just the population of the city of Fort Smith, the fire department employed 0.019% of the total African -American population of Fort Smith.
The number fairs a little better percentage wise when comparing percentages to the metro demographic population, but not by much.
Based on the percentage of Africa- Americans among the Fort Smith DMA (based on the latest census information available), the fire department is also lacking in racial diversity.
Other factors have to be considered. Based on percentages and eligible African-American living in the Fort Smith DMA (considering age restrictions, education requirements and prior felony convictions that would render them ineligible) the pool is approximately 1084 eligible prospects, both make and female.
Taking it a step further, 67.9 percent of women nationwide say they would never consider a career in law enforcement or for the fire department.
Women make up 51.3% of the eligible applicant pool so the actual eligible hiring pool of those qualified and willing to serve among the African-American community (considering that all the eligible men would be willing to pursue a career in law enforcement or as a firefighter) drops to 717 potential candidates.
As an overall percentage based on the eligible pool of potential qualified applicants that the FSPD need a total of five sworn black officers or other employees and the fire department would need to total six to meet statistical quotas of the eligible.
In reality, the Hispanic population is much more under-served as a percentage of the population employed by the fire or police department than any other ethnic group.
But the social group that is really on the short end of the stick when it cones to hiring practices in the two departments — females — is vastly under-served.
Based on the formula used to determine the eligible pool of women that could be hired versus the number of women in the departments, 5472 females in the statistical pool would be eligible for hiring. Currently eight women work for the police department and three are employed by the fire department.
Based on population ratios (and not considering eligibility requirements) only, the fire department would have to have 80 females employed while the FSPD would need almost 70 officers to meet statistical quotas.
Based on the total population, 4.7 black officers and 5.3 black firefighters would reflect community demographics.
For that matter, for the sake of diversity, three and a half of the sitting members of the Fort Smith Board of Directors should be female to properly represent that demographic as a percentage of he population.
Which may be something to consider by voters down the road, since no one seems to be too concerned with the disparity and diversification issue right now when it comes to “quotas” for females.
