City of OKC

Recommendation No. 10:

The City should consider preference points for new OKCPD applicants with mental health or social work experience.

The City should consider preference points for new applicants to the Department with mental health experience, certifications, or degrees, or social work experience.

Project Status: 80% Implemented

Visit the About page for Project Status definitions.

Project Details from Consultant Report

We heard concerns from members of the community, the Task Force, and the Working Group, that OKCPD should focus carefully on who they hire for policing. Indeed, the evolving role of police demands that departments consider both the skills and makeup of their officers and plan for the resources needed in the future.

The most effective law enforcement agencies of the future will be those that seek out and embrace the next generations of officers, and will adjust their organizational models and practices to adapt to the changing dynamics of policing.

Most departments in the United States have hiring preference points based on military service; some also apply military preference points for promotions. Some departments have used hiring preference points to help attract the skills or attributes desired for incoming officers. For example, the Philadelphia Police Department has preference points for education, non-English language skills, Philadelphia residency, military service, or participation in the Police Explorers Cadet Program.70 The City of Milwaukee provides preference points in police officer hiring for criminal justice, law enforcement, or police science degrees.71 The King County Sheriff’s Office (WA) added Peace Corps experience preference points.

In 2017, the City of Seattle passed an ordinance that holistically changed the preference point system in order to target those employees best suited to modern policing:

SPD shall use preference points in hiring sworn employees who are multi-lingual and/or have work experience or educational background providing important skills needed in modern policing, such as experience working with diverse communities, and social work, mental health or domestic violence counseling, or other similar work or community service backgrounds.

What is important here is that OKC define those desirable qualities for police officers – emphasizing the role of service, problem solving, and communication – and tailor its hiring strategies to attract officers with those qualities. Specifically providing preference points in hiring is a clear, measurable way to achieve that goal.