I am a member of the Eden Prairie A.M. Rotary Club. So are City Council Member Brad Aho and Fire Chief George Esbensen. At our Rotary Club meeting last week we received a presentation from former Hennepin County Judge Pam Alexander. Ms. Alexander is now the President of the Council on Crime and Justice.
As part of her presentation to our club, Ms. Alexander described a study her organization did a couple of years ago that tested the level of “racial profiling” going on in 64 Minnesota cities. The study declared racial profiling to exist if a community’s arrest records for members of racial or ethnic minorities exceeded their percentage of the population of the community in question. For example, if persons of racial or ethnic minority groups made up 5% of a community’s population, but accounted for 10% of those arrested by the Police in that community, this study found that community to be engaged in some level of racial profiling.
Ms. Alexander told the Rotary Club audience that of the 64 Minnesota cities involved in the study only one was found not to be engaged in the practice of racial profiling. That one city was: Eden Prairie. She told the club members that the data was even more exceptional given that the activity levels of the Eden Prairie Police Department and Eden Prairie City Attorney’s Office were also higher than those of the average city in the survey. She heaped great praise on the work of the Eden Prairie Police and the Prosecutor to an audience of Eden Prairie’s community leaders. It felt very nice to be there that day to hear this news. It’s even more nice to be a part of it, even if my part of it is relatively small.
We pay a great deal of attention to who gets a job in our Police Department. It’s a tough place to get hired. We get many fine applicants for every opening. We pay well. There are opportunities for advancement. We pay attention to officer safety by making sure they have the tools they need to do their jobs. There are opportunities for learning, training and personal growth. It’s a good place to work.
And in exchange, we get exceptional Police Officers here. It makes a difference, and the results that Ms. Alexander pointed to last week are a great example of the difference made when good people are able to do their best work.
