The New Zealand Police is making great strides toward representing the community it serves, a senior diversity facilitator for the police writes this week. This year's Big Gay Out last month had the biggest ever turnout of police officers, many traveling to be there from elsewhere in New Zealand, says Matt Creamer, NZ Police's Project Officer Equity and Diversity in the latest issue of the police's internal magazine. Creamer says his role includes training, developing and bringing the police's Diversity Liaison Officers (DLO's) together to help achieve the goals they've set for the year. “Part of it is to attend the Big Gay Out and other community events around the country,” he adds. People dealing with non-heterosexual issues are represented in every community, ethnicity and minority, Creamer explains. “Part of our goal is to make sure the GLBTI community are coming to us with crimes that are being committed against them, and crimes they see being committed, to increase reporting and make sure people aren't afraid to call us whenever they need us.” Creamer believes barriers have been broken down considerably since police attended the Big Gay Out in 2000. “We found it quite hard to engage with the community. Now, we're expected to be here. People love us and come and interact with us as often as they can and have a chat about their experiences with police, good and bad. “In the future I'd like to see gay men and lesbian women not even think twice about joining an organization like ours – not to feel intimidated or afraid to come in and disclose their sexuality.” Police officers and staff volunteer to become DLO's for a wdie range of reasons, says Creamer. “Some have had family members or staff come out to them, some of them just have an interest in making sure things are fair and right in our organization and our community.” The Big Gay Out this year concluded with just one violent incident, ending in two arrests – one male for assault and breaching a protection order, and one female for assault with a weapon. Creamer says it was a domestic dispute, not a homophobic attack. A link to an up-to-date list of New Zealand's Diversity Liaison Officers is provided below. Ref: NZ Police, GayNZ.com (m)
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 22nd March 2007 - 12:00pm