Nutrition & Foodservice Edge Magazine - March/April 2024 - 37

speak the languages of the immigrant
populations in their communities.
So, if there were 25 candidates who
had qualified under the physical
and written testing, and the agency
needed an officer who spoke Spanish
to work with their Spanish-speaking
population, the agency was forbidden
to hire outside of the scoring order. If a
qualified Spanish-speaking candidate
was number 15 on the list, the agency
could not offer that person a job until
the previous 14 candidates had been
hired. These lists were often only good
for a year, so that Spanish-speaking
candidate might never be offered a
position, even though they would have
been the best person to police that
community.
Public safety agencies were somewhat
more successful at recruiting female
candidates, but those candidates
often left the agency within five
years due to union contracts that
were written predominately by
white men. These contracts included
scheduling advantages for seniority,
so new officers usually got the
overnight shifts. When the female
officers started families, those shifts
often disenfranchised them due to
the difficulty of finding overnight
childcare. The seniority scheduling
dictate often led female candidates to
leave.
Part of my cohort's recommendations
was to change both of these processes.
I recently spoke with Captain Brandon
Bracelin and Jaibre Osberg, Sheriff
Staffing Specialist, of the Polk County
Sheriff's Office in Des Moines, Iowa,
where I work, to learn what successes
they have had and what advice they
could offer regarding attracting a
diverse workforce. The staff at the jail
is much more diverse today than when
I started there 17 years ago.
Captain Bracelin gives a lot of credit
to Sheriff Kevin J. Schneider. Bracelin
said that visibility is one of the best
ways to recruit. Sheriff Schneider
works with a refugee group locally.
He sponsors an annual golf outing for
refugee children. These refugees
and their parents see a law office
command staff who interacts with
them in a fun way. This helps break
down stereotypes they may have
about police in their native cultures.
Schneider also goes to area cultural
events so that all of the various
cultural groups see him and his
staff supporting them and their
communities. He is at the Capital
City Pride Festival, the CelebrAsian
Festival, the Latino Heritage Festival,
etc. Staffing Specialist Osberg added
that this visibility has led to more
staff diversity at the jail. When one
person within those communities is
hired and discovers that it is a good
job with good benefits, they start
referring others to apply.
Bracelin also shared that the office
has been hiring more female
deputies. There is a national push
by 30X30 (www.30x30initiative.
org) to have 30 percent of women
recruits in law enforcement by
2030. This 30X30 initiative reports
NUTRITION & FOODSERVICE EDGE | MARCH-APRIL 2024 37
http://www.30x30initiative
Nutrition & Foodservice Edge Magazine - March/April 2024

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