Police census shows lack of diversity

By Sean Previl

Members of the Windsor Police Service hopes the force will become more diverse after a recent census showed it was falling short in certain demographic groups.

The first inaugural workplace census was conducted by WPS’s Human Rights Project team in 2012 and after receiving a 96 per cent participation rate, the organization discovered it did not have the diversity they hoped for.

The police service wants to use the results of the report to improve on the hiring process.

“We’re going to look at this and take this to our recruitment process and look where we’re falling short,” said Inspector Rick Facciolo.

Facciolo said the amount of women in the police service was lower than what they wanted.

“This identifies the fact that there is an issue here with females, that we’re not hiring enough,” said Facciolo.

The census showed women account for over 32 per cent of the organization, yet women make up over 51 per cent of Windsor’s population.

“The Human Rights Project Charter is identifying some initiatives for us to attract them, to attract females to the profession,” said Al Frederick, chief of the Windsor Police Service.

Frederick said the WPS is trying to bring in more people of different backgrounds, but the recruitment falls short because people do not follow through after showing interest.

Frederick said women might also be avoiding the WPS for other reasons.

“They’re entering the work force and they’re seeing other opportunities that may be more conducive to them as individuals and I totally respect that,” said Frederick. “But I want to make sure they realize that this is a viable option and it’s a very secure option.”

Facciolo said the small amount of female officers is not limited to Windsor.

“Women in policing is something that is a trend across the province itself,” said Facciolo. “So we use that as an example of how we’re going to take this census data and then try to attract females to come to this job.”

Facciolo said the Windsor Police Service intend to take a census every three years and use it to inform policy.