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potential applicant that would be on the highly traveled highway corridor. The
remaining two billboards were located at the five-way intersection of Park and
Pontiac avenues as well as on Eddy Street northbound (near RI Hospital in the
city of Providence). These local billboards targeted high traffic areas both inside
and outside the city. The focus was to capture potential applicants from the under-
represented demographic groups. We believed that a condensed, more targeted
approach would be beneficial to the recruitment initiative.

For the first time in department history, the department utilized a mobile app
(www.policeapp.com) for the entire registration and application submission. The
online registration provided the department with interested applicants from all
over the United States. The app also provided the department with demographical
and geographical data which will be analyzed for future recruitment campaigns.
This was a completed objective from 2017.

The recruitment initiative was placed on Pro-Jo online, Zip-Recruiter and Indeed
hiring portals. It was forwarded to all the City Council members and to the NAACP
Providence and Progressive Latino community groups. It was posted on the
following websites; National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers, the
African Alliance of RI and the RI Department of Labor. We conducted a
recruitment an open house on June 22nd where potential applicants were able to
meet minority officers to answer questions and discuss the challenges they may
have faced during their application process. The recruitment notice and job
announcement were placed on the City’s and Police Department’s websites as
well as our social media pages with updates going out regularly. We posted
through the employment portal Handshake and with eighteen regional colleges
and universities. We attended a Job Fair conducted in the city of Providence by
Workforce Solutions. The job fair provided us the opportunity to meet potential
minority applicants as well as other professionals looking for a change in career
paths.

The nine-week recruitment campaign ended on June 28th with two-hundred and
forty (240) applications being submitted. Although the overall submitted
applications were lower than in 2017 (279), we are confident that the recruitment
process yielded a better qualified applicant pool with several applications being
received from as far away as Vermont, New York, and Tennessee.

Patrol Rifle Training Program

Officers within the patrol division were certified with the patrol rifle in the fall. This
one-day training was mandatory for officers to continue to utilize the rifle during
their patrol duties. Officers were required to pass the certification course as well
as several other drills and technical aspects of the patrol rifle.

www.cranstonpoliceri.gov