IU Police Department Capt. Andy Stephenson said one of his biggest goals is to improve communication with diverse communities at IU.
His first steps toward reaching this goal are the implementation of diversity training for IUPD officers and partnerships with minority student associations on campus.
Instructors from the Indiana State Police organized a weeklong diversity training program for IUPD last week. IUPD requested the training presentations, which the ISP has been developing for the last year, Stephenson said.
“Training for diversity relations is something that has never been done very consistently here in the past,” Stephenson said. “That’s something I want to change, and from now on it will be done, at minimum, on a yearly basis.”
The training sessions used current events to spark discussion on different approaches to law enforcement relations. Recent police shootings and conflicts between officers and black citizens in cities such as Chicago and Baltimore were used as examples.
“In the past, it seemed like we were just told to treat others respectfully without any specific examples of how things had gone wrong,” IUPD Officer Ashley Hazelgrove said. “But this reminded us that not everyone automatically trusts the police, and we have to do our job well to gain that trust from them.”
The training sessions focused on events in American history that affect race relations with law enforcement. A video detailing the Freedom Riders of the 1960s, who were involved in the desegregation of the bus system, was shown.
“A lot of those people who were working for equal rights were treated poorly by police officers, and I wasn’t even aware of that before we watched the video,” Stephenson said. “That really opened our eyes and had a huge emotional impact on our officers.”
As the semester moves forward, Stephenson said he hopes for officers to use this training to improve communication and relationships with communities of minority and international students. Other diversity initiatives recently started by IUPD include a partnership with the South Korea Consulate in Chicago.
The consulate contacted IU to start a pilot program to improve communication and understanding between Korean students and law enforcement.
IUPD Officer Damon Lim, who is Korean-American, now serves as a liaison between IUPD and Korean students at IU.
“International students can be a hard group to reach out to, especially because of the language barrier,” Lim said. “This is the first program of this type, and so I’m looking forward to talking to these students and trying to make them feel more comfortable with officers.”
One problem IUPD has encountered with students from South Asian countries is they don’t always recognize when they are being pulled over by an officer, Lim said. Some South Asian law enforcement officers patrol with their lights flashing, so students don’t realize when they need to pull over or stop.
“Cultural differences like that are the things we can fix if we communicate a little better,” Lim said.
Partnerships with other minority populations on campus are also being considered for the future, Stephenson said. IUPD extended an invitation to black students for a program similar to the South Korean partnership.
“We’re human beings with biases and prejudices like everybody else,” Stephenson said. “It’s important that every law enforcement officer is given the opportunity to understand things from another point of view.”
