A HIGH profile recruitment drive to raise the number of ethnic minority police officers in Lancashire's force is targeting Preston this week.

Using a series of positive discrimination strategies, including specifically targeted job advertisements on billboards, bus sides and in the local press, Lancashire Police Authority is aiming to boost its number of recruits from the Asian and African-Caribbean communities.

Local colleges are delivering a 16-week Access Course for the Uniformed Services, an initiative backed by The Lancashire Black Police Association, the Fire Service and the Armed Forces.

And police constable Mebs Ahmed has been appointed as the force's ethnic minority liaison officer with the task of organising various initiatives to attract quality ethnic minority applications.

The massive recruitment drive is part of a ten-year campaign launched in Blackburn last April, following Home Secretary Jack Straw's pledge to increase the number of ethnic minority police officers, in light of the Stephen Lawrence murder enquiry.

Police chiefs are committed to attracting around 162 officers from the ethnic minorities along with 73 ethnic minority support staff and 24 Special Police Constables, from across Lancashire.

Since the start of the campaign the force has attracted nearly 300 new ethnic minority applications and police chiefs have conducted 2,952 telephone interviews for uniformed posts.

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