The Seattle Police Department gives military veterans a preference when they apply for jobs as officers. Why not give bilingual speakers an advantage, too?
In the historic package of police accountability legislation passed by the City Council in May, City Council members agreed that Seattle police should use preference points—the same system used to boost military experience—to increase the number of bilingual speakers on the force, as well as people who have experience in “social work, mental health or domestic violence counseling, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or other similar work or community service backgrounds.” But new recommendations published last week from the Community Police Commission (CPC) suggest going a step further: adding incentive pay for officers who use those language skills on the job.
The CPC report, which focused on how the department can hire and retain more officers of color, suggests that additional pay would not only help recruit more bilingual speakers, but also build trust in diverse communities.
According to the 2010 Census, more than 20 percent of Seattleites speak a language other than English at home, but for some neighborhoods, that number is much higher. A 2014 Seattle Times data dive showed that in South Beacon Hill, for example, as many as 72 percent of neighborhood residents don’t speak English at home.
“If we could provide incentive pay for one thing, it should be language,” one SPD officer who participated in one of the CPC’s roundtable discussions said, according to the report. “Language skills are the most important skill a candidate could bring. Our first foray into a community is language. If we don’t start there, we start at a disadvantaged place.”
If SPD did start providing bilingual incentive pay, it wouldn’t be the first police department to do so. Dallas, Fort Worth, Raleigh, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Atlanta, and Anaheim city police departments already provide some sort of incentive pay for certain positions or various bilingual policing duties.
Check out the full report here.
