Recruiting, Promotions, Prejudice, and Retention of Minority Officers - Research Paper Example

The qualification and experience of such individuals take the center stage of considerations.

However, the recruitment, promotion and retention of the minority groups call for further considerations, other than their suitability; in terms of qualifications and experience. In this case, the vulnerabilities of the candidate, which makes them be in a meager position than the rest, who have qualifications and experiences are considered, with the aim of giving such candidates the opportunity, since they cannot compete with the rest effectively, owing to their vulnerabilities (Shusta, Levine, Wong, & Harris, 2005). This causes stress because; there are chances that such candidates might fail to perform well in the job, despite having been favored over the others. In the event that such candidates fail to deliver as expected, yet they were favored on the basis of their race, gender, or origin, it will cause stress to the other partners at work, since they could feel that the best-qualified candidates would have been recruited, promoted or retained (Wirth, 2001).

More than to the employer who might feel that they did not get the best-qualified candidate for the job, the qualified candidates who lost the job to the minority candidate feel more stressed out. Law enforcement agencies are sensitive and particularly prone to great dangers, in the event that they are not run by qualified and the most suitable candidates (Arnesen, 2007). Therefore, the application of affirmative action, requiring that the minority groups are favored during recruitment, promotion or retention serves to put such agencies at risk of having individuals, who may not be as qualified and experienced with the work, as the other candidates who were disqualified to pave way for the minority.

 The stress will be borne by both the law enforcement agency and the minority candidate; since the candidates will always feel that they are in the job simply because they come from a minority group, something that may cause them to lose motivation (Shusta, Levine, Wong, & Harris, 2005). The stress to the enforcement agency occurs in the form of a feeling that they are required to recruit, promote or retain the candidates who are not suitable to take jobs available. Therefore, the inability of the minority candidate to overcome the notion that they got the job by the virtue of belonging to a minority group, and the inability of the enforcement agency to overcome the feeling that they could have lost better candidates for the job, make the recruitment, promotion or retention of the minority a stressful issue.