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Diversity at the PPB: Hiring Issues and Psychological Exams Bring Issue Back

In mid-October, the Albina Ministerial Alliance (AMA) Coalition for Justice and Police Reform sent a letter to City Council and the Chief asking them to consider broadening the search for a Police Psychologist when the current contract with Dr. David Corey expires. Dr. Corey is a white practitioner from Lake Oswego who has had the contract to screen new recruits since 1999. Portland Copwatch (PCW) and the AMA Coalition previously pushed the issue into the public eye in 2012-2013 (PPR #61). The main focus of the letter was Corey's promise in the 2013 three-year contract to diversify his screening panel and make regular reports about progress, with the idea being that people who are not white might want to see people who look like them conducting the interviews. The issue of diversity in the Bureau came up again in late October when the "Independent" Police Review (IPR) released a report about "Equity in Police Bureau Hiring." Because IPR conducted their study with no public input, the issue of the psychologist was not part of the report. However, it did contain a chart showing that only about 3% of the Bureau's employees are African American in a city that is 6% black.

In response to the AMA Coalition's letter, the Chief and her staff have promised to open up hiring before Corey's contract expires again in August 2019. Corey's position was renewed quietly in 2016 after the City changed its rules so contracts under $500,000 do not need Council approval. According to the November 30 Street Roots, Corey is still "consulting" with Dr. Sandra Jenkins, an African American psychologist who formerly worked at Pacific University. This indicates Dr. Jenkins is not conducting the actual exams.

IPR's report was confusing, as they said there's no way to see whether the PPB is doing adequate outreach to candidates of color because demographic information is kept by the City's Bureau of Human Resources (BHR). This leads to the question, "why didn't IPR just get the information from BHR?" Mostly, the recommendations are for the PPB to track more data and broaden their diversity.

PCW examined information from the PPB which shows that from 2015 to 2018, the number of African American officers of all ranks went down from 36 to 34. There are no Native American line officers and just four in the entire Bureau out of 920 sworn employees, or 0.4%, far below their representation in the population. IPR points out that nearly 84% of the Bureau is white in a city that is only 75% Caucasian.

See the IPR's hiring report at https://www.portlandoregon.gov/ipr/article/701353.

Non Resident Cops

Contrary to the buzzphrase "community policing," few Portland officers actually live in the community. The Portland Mercury reported public records show only 158 of 864 sworn officers (18%) live within the Portland city limits (September 27). More officers live in Washington State than in Portland. Currently, there is no residency requirement for Portland officers. Captains and commanders can receive a five percent pay increase to live within the city limits and a separate increase in all salaries (PPR #70) should enable officers to rent or buy in Portland.
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January, 2019
Also in PPR #76

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

People's Police Report #76 Table of Contents
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