Multicultural Communication Training for Law Enforcement Officers: A Case Study

Abstract

This exploratory case study focused on multicultural communication training within the community policing context. Little research has addressed what constitutes effective content and delivery of multicultural training for law enforcement officers. Brislin and Yoshida's four-component multicultural plan was combined with limited law enforcement-related multicultural training literature to design a training program for a small city's police department. Two 4-hour training sessions were conducted by one of the investigators using a culture-general content approach and selected training methods to determine their usefulness for improving officers' multi-cultural competencies. The case included the training sessions together with pre-and posttraining activities over a period of approximately 3 months. Data were collected with selected test instruments and also from the field notes taken during the case activities. The results suggest that the culture-general model and interactive training methods and trainer qualifications may be key to yielding positive training outcomes.