Northwest Arkansas law enforcement agencies and fire departments are comprised of mostly white men despite active recruiting effort and an increasingly diverse Northwest Arkansas population, department records show.
“We struggle to have a Fire Department that reflects the community,”said Tom Jenkins, Rogers fire chief.
By the Numbers
Diversity
Northwest Arkansas fire departments and law enforcement agencies often struggle to recruit and hire people who are from diverse racial backgrounds or who are women. The number of firefighters, deputies and police officers from minority groups remains low despite recruiting efforts. The current makeup of Northwest Arkansas agencies:
• Springdale Fire: 114 firefighters, two Hispanic, two of mixed ethnicity
• Springdale Police: 122 police officers, four women, three black, 11 Hispanic and two Native American
• Rogers Fire: 111 firefighters, one black, one woman and two Hispanic
• Rogers Police: 97 police officers, eight Hispanic, two Hmong, one black and four women
• Bentonville Fire: 66 firefighters, one Native American
• Bentonville Police: 65 police officers;, 60 white, one black, three women and four Hispanic
• Fayetteville Fire: 110 firefighters, one black man, one woman, one Hispanic
• Fayetteville Police: 112 police officers, 104 white, two black , one Hispanic man, one Hispanic woman, four white women and three officers listed as “other”
• Washington County Sheriff’s Office: 156 deputies, 27 women, including one black woman; one black man, one Hispanic man and one Native American man *
• Benton County Sheriff’s Office: numbers not provided by deadline
- Hiring at the county level is different than at the city level, so numbers are not be comparable.
Source: Staff Report
The Census
City Minorities
• Bentonville: Top two minority groups are Hispanic or Latino at 8.7 percent and Asian at 8.3 percent. Women make up 51 percent of the population.
• Fayetteville: Top two minority groups are Hispanic or Latino at 6.4 percent and black at 6 percent. Women make up 49.7 percent of the population.
• Rogers: The largest two minority groups are Hispanic or Latino at 31.5 percent and two or more races at 3 percent. Women make up 51 percent of the population.
• Springdale: The largest Hispanic or Latino community in Northwest Arkansas at 35.4 percent. The next largest minority group is Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander at 5.7 percent. Women make up 50 percent of the population.
Source: 2010 Census
Webwatch
To see a recruiting video from the Springdale Police Department, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=V45XAP7Yhjo.
In Rogers, Hispanic people make up about 32 percent of the population, according to the Census Bureau’s 2010 estimate. Yet, only 2 percent of the city’s firefighters are Hispanic, according to Jenkins provided.
Officials say having police and firefighters who look like people in the communities they serve is important for breaking cultural and language barriers, building trust and aiding in investigations. Diversity means better information in life-threatening situations, officials said.
Departments, however, continue to struggle to attract candidates who are Hispanic-Latino, Asian, black, or are women, officials said.
Only about 15 percent of Rogers police force is in a minority group. That’s two Hmong, eight Hispanic-Latino, one black and four women among 97 officers, according to the department. About 14 percent of Springdale’s police force is considered part of a minority group. About 12 percent of Fayetteville’s and Bentonville’s police force are in a minority group.
Numbers released by some departments list women who are also in a racial or ethnic minority group in both categories, meaning women can be listed twice in statistics.
Fire departments also have low numbers of people from minority groups, records show.
Among 114 Springdale firefighters, only four are in a minority groups, said Chief Mike Irwin. Three Fayetteville firefighters are in a minority group out of 110 firefighters, said Chief David Dayringer. Bentonville has one Native American firefighter among 66 firefighters. Rogers has one woman, one black and two Hispanic firefighters among 111 firefighters.
The lack of diversity isn’t limited to Northwest Arkansas fire and police services alone, national surveys show.
Nationwide, one in four police officers were from a racial or ethnic minority group in 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Women made up just 4.5 percent of firefighters across the U.S., and Hispanic-Latino, Asian and black firefighters make up about 13.5 percent of firefighters, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2011 survey.
Bentonville police and fire departments see few people from diverse backgrounds wanting to join the services, said Ed Wheeler, the city’s human resources manager. Not everyone wants to be in law enforcement or the fire service, he said. Police and fire departments compete with the private sectors for applicants who are bilingual, Wheeler said.
“Our pool of diverse candidates is extremely small, and the competition for those candidates is extremely high,” Wheeler said.
Not Like Us
Among fire departments from Northwest Arkansas’ four largest cities, only two women — one in Rogers and one in Fayetteville — are firefighters.
“This is not a very diverse business, which is why (getting diversity) is so hard,” Jenkins said.
When people don’t see firefighters or police officers who look like them, they might not think joining law agencies or fire departments is possible, said Lacie Hewlett, a 10-year veteran firefighter at the Rogers Fire Department.
Hewlett said she saw women firefighters for the first time after she moved from Arkansas to Oregon around 2000. Before then, she had never seen a woman in the firefighting profession, she said.
“I didn’t know it was possible,” Hewlett said.
Sometimes when Hewlett speaks at schools, the girls look at her and say they didn’t know women could become firefighters, she said.
Not seeing more officers from different backgrounds may impact what children think their career options are, said Al Jones, who’s Rogers’ only black firefighter. But many black people he knows don’t want to be firefighters either, he said.
None of Jones’ children are interested in becoming firefighters, he said. Being a firefighter is a “calling” that requires passion, no mater what gender or skin color a person has, he said.
“The ones who really want to — they will pursue it,” Jones said.
That sentiment holds true for police officers, too, said Guillermo Sanchez, a new officer at the Springdale Police Department.
Sanchez said he’d love to see more Hispanic or Marshallese officers on the force, but the department is doing what it should to attract candidates, he said.
“They attract any race, it’s not for one in particular,” Sanchez said. “It doesn’t matter what race you are, what gender you are.”
Getting The Word Out
Across Northwest Arkansas, law enforcement agencies and fire departments are stepping up recruiting in hopes of increasing diversity.
“We are recruiting all the time,” said Craig Stout, Fayetteville police spokesman. “We want to make sure we have a good representation of the Fayetteville community for the Fayetteville Police Department.”
Departments from Bentonville to Springdale are advertising in Spanish media outlets and mainstream media, using multimedia platforms, visiting community colleges, universities and high schools and going to job fairs. Last year, Rogers Fire Department representatives visited 12 institutions, some of them out of state.
Officials said they also use word of mouth. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office uses deputies and employees who are in minority groups to recruit from within those groups, said Kelly Cantrell, spokeswoman for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
In Springdale, the Police Department recently released a YouTube video to attract candidates. Recruits also come through the Law Academy at Springdale High School that teaches children about careers in law enforcement, said Derek Hudson, spokesman for the Police Department. The Fire Department plans to start a similar academy for fire service this fall, Irwin said.
Two agencies — the Rogers Fire Department and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office — have created committees meant to increase the number of quality applicants and, hopefully, the diversity of those applicants, officials said. Rogers started its committee in 2013, Jenkins said. The Sheriff’s Office committee was founded at the end of 2012, spokeswoman Keshia Guyll said.
Another plan to increase the number and diversity of people applying to Northwest Arkansas fire departments is being studied, fire chiefs said.
Fire departments in the two-county area are looking at creating standardized, regional tests that could be used at any of the departments, said Dayringer. He’s also president of the Northwest Arkansas Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, which is researching the proposal.
The regional test would be a way to increase the applicant pool, increase diversity among applicants and make the test convenient so people no longer had to test at each individual department, officials said. One physical and written test would be used for all departments.
The plan is still being studied, Dayringer said. Springdale, Fayetteville and Rogers officials are interested in the regional test, chiefs there said. Bentonville is neutral about the proposal, Wheeler said.
Even without a regional test, Jenkins said recruiting efforts are working. It just takes time.
“These successes often come in ones or twos,” Jenkins said.
Last year, among 74 applicants for the Rogers Fire Department, six were women, five were Hispanic and one was black. That’s better than 2012, when all 54 applicants were white men, except for one Hispanic man.
“This last year, we had more minorities test than I can ever remember since being here (17 years),” said Bryan Hinds, deputy chief of field operations for the Rogers Fire Department.
Other departments are also seeing improvements, officials said.
“I don’t know how effective we are compared to others, but I think we are making steady improvement year to year,” said Keith Foster, Rogers police spokesman.
The Rogers Police Department added another Hispanic officer to its force at the end of last year, Foster said. Earlier in 2013, the department hired its first black officer.
Departments are looking more and more like the communities they serve, Hudson said. On Jan. 17, the Springdale Police Department swore in 10 officers, five were Hispanic, Hudson said.
“As our community has become more diverse, so has our department,” Hudson said.