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Cleveland鈥檚 Division of Police (CDP) continues to struggle to overcome a lack of diversity in its ranks.

It鈥檚 not a new problem.

, claiming its hiring practices discriminated against minority applicants. The 2015 consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice requires that the city come up with a five-year recruiting plan focused on attracting more officers from minority groups.

Black city councilmembers, including Basheer Jones and Joe Jones, have pressed the department to make more progress in diversity recruitment efforts.

鈥淚鈥檝e been here for four years,鈥� Basheer Jones said during the most recent hearings on the public safety department鈥檚 budget. 鈥淎nd we are still getting the same answers back that we have gotten in the first year. It鈥檚 the same.鈥�

During a recent virtual town hall meeting on police reforms, Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams defended the department鈥檚 recruitment efforts against those criticisms.

鈥淥ur academy classes probably over the last two-and-half to three years have probably been the most diverse classes that we鈥檝e had in the last 20 years,鈥� Williams said.

The city still has a way to go. In response to a public information request, the city provided demographic data from the last 17 recruit classes, going back to 2014. Of the 819 recruits who entered the academy during that time period, about 54 percent were white males and just 24 percent were Black.  

Based on department demographics provided by the city, Cleveland鈥檚 police force changed very little between 2016 and 2020 鈥� it鈥檚 remained about two-thirds white and more than 80 percent male during those years, in .

CDP is developing new ways to recruit diverse officers, like starting recruitment efforts with high school students and planning to establish a presence on TikTok.

But there are deeper challenges police recruiters face, including misperceptions about what policing is all about.

鈥淲hen you give the message that we run and gun and you get to have dominion over others, these are the folks we attract,鈥� said former Cleveland Police Sgt. Charmin Leon, who was in charge of recruiting for the city until September of last year.

According to Leon, maturity and emotional intelligence are the first things she looks for in a recruit. That鈥檚 why she recommends raising the minimum age for new hires to above 21.

鈥淵ou can't get the right behavior from the wrong people,鈥� Leon said. 鈥淎lthough sociopaths only make up 8 percent of the general population, you know what percentage they make up of policing? Forty percent.鈥�

Leon attributed that national statistic to a psychological screening provider.

And on the flip side of attracting the wrong people in the recruiting process, Leon has also had to overcome Black Clevelanders鈥� deeply ingrained distrust of police, pointing to high-profile wrongful convictions that have been overturned with DNA evidence or videos of police shootings from recent years.

鈥淲ell, the thing is, as police officers, as law enforcement we brought that on ourselves. People feel that way because of how police have behaved in these communities. Let鈥檚 start there, ok? People aren鈥檛 saying that out of nothing,鈥� Leon said.

But Leon tells recruits they鈥檒l have allies in the department who agree that policing needs to change.

鈥淧eople, when they see someone on the street in a uniform, they should be very confident that that person is an exceptional person for that position,鈥� Leon said.

During her time leading the recruiting department, Leon increased the department鈥檚 presence in the community, courting candidates at places like barber shops and community centers. The non-white male proportion of recruiting classes in 2019 and 2020 crept up to around 50 percent.

As the head of Black Shield, the department鈥檚 association of Black officers, Sgt. Vincent Montague, argues getting to a number that鈥檚 more reflective of the city鈥檚 population would lead to a more empathetic department. And it would make it easier for potential applicants to see themselves as part of the force.

鈥淟ike when you go to a police event, you always hear the bag pipes,鈥� Montague said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not African-American culture but that became a police culture. So maybe it would be something else that would identify more with the community.鈥�

Part of his work with Black Shield is recruiting potential Black officers. But Montague bumps up against one cultural roadblock after another, like rules about hair length and beards.

鈥淭hey鈥檒l mess with Blackness, they鈥檒l mess with Black women about our hair styles because they don鈥檛 understand our culture,鈥� Montague said. 鈥淵ou have to shave your beard. That affects recruitment. Who has issues with razor bumps? It鈥檚 majority African-American men.鈥�

Cleveland, like many police departments around the country, is also falling short in recruiting women. Only about 16 percent of the department is female.

鈥淥ne of the most horrendous things in policing is most agencies are under 10 percent female and that is an atrocity,鈥� said Chris Burbank, the former chief of police in Salt Lake City who鈥檚 now vice president of law enforcement strategy for the Center for Policing Equity.

According to Burbank, with all of the public interest in police reform and discussion about changing how policing is done, now is the time to rethink every part of policing.

鈥淭here is nothing that dictates you can't have part-time police officers, that you can鈥檛 have daycare in the station,鈥� Burbank said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 lots of avenues to make the job more inviting to career-level people.鈥�