The Need for Intercultural Competence Assessment and Training Among Police Officers

In recent years, there has been a growing social and political controversy surrounding police, racism, excessive use of force, and communities of color in the United States (i.e., Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, etc). The controversy has been polarizing. Currently, we do not have nationally centralized training or assessment standards for police officer training and assessment of cultural competency. Furthermore, there is little to no research indicating how and if police departments are measuring and accounting for this area of training. In light of this, we recommend the use of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) as a tool to train police officers from a developmental perspective. The IDI is a 50-item questionnaire assessment of intercultural competence, which provides each individual with an IDI profile that seeks to help identify key (a) intercultural growth goals, (b) specific challenges individuals face when met with cultural difference, (c) critical incidents one faces when encountering cultural differences, and (d) ways one navigates the differences. The IDI would provide an assessment tool to begin gathering psychological evidence around where police departments are in their intercultural competence, and begin understanding what types of training are needed. We believe that improved competence and contextual awareness may help to lead to more effective police work and thus, decrease frequency of police-involved shootings of people of color, especially Black men.