1.3: The Evolving Nature of Multiculturalism

At the turn of the century, multicultural communities are the norm in many cities throughout the United States. Throughout the history of the United States, it has witnessed transnational migration of large groups of people due to a variety of factors worldwide. This movement has resulted in changes in the ethnic and cultural makeup of communities that are the destinations and sources of the migration.

These changes present challenges for criminal justice practitioners and policymakers in the affected communities. For example, some cultures will allow only women to be questioned by a female police officer. A male may refuse to cooperate with a female police officer. Men from some cultures carry a ceremonial dagger next to their skin, which they would be reluctant to remove. Communication may be a problem, as not everyone speaks the same language. Poor language skills and a lack of cultural sensitivity may lead to unintended violence. Cooperation with law enforcement officers within ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods may not be forthcoming. Recruitment and retention of an ethnically diverse police force is both a challenge and a necessity. Failure to address the challenges of policing in a multicultural society can result in misunderstandings, alienation, civil unrest, and violence.

The problems associated with policing in culturally and ethnically diverse societies are not unique to the United States. The decade of the 1990s witnessed enormous political, economic, and social change. Among the countries undergoing particularly eventful political upheaval were Germany and South Africa. The breakdown of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 meant the end of the Iron Curtain and the beginning of cataclysmic change for Germany.

Following the relaxation of borders that had divided east from west for nearly five decades, a virtual flood of people began traveling from the East to the West. The formerly homogeneous society of the socialist German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was transformed practically overnight, with increased xenophobia and all its repercussions being among its results. The former West Germany had an influx of asylum seekers, including persons from Eastern Europe claiming German heritage. Both the police as an institution and police officers as individuals had to confront and cope with these critical changes. For example, police in the east, accustomed to totalitarian tactics of a police state, had to determine whom they would represent, the public, or the government. Across Germany there developed great uncertainty among police officers, the outcome of which often was frustration, opposition to organizational change, and a general withdrawal from public contact. The German example is an enormously valuable case study of a society’s efforts to cope with both the burdens of its past and the new challenges of dramatic change. The German police have been and continue to be at the center of these efforts. It is clear that such problems can also be found in relatively stable, albeit diverse, countries where change has been more evolutionary than revolutionary. Three such countries are Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.