HARTFORD, Conn. – Leaders of the Connecticut NAACP have met with state police officials over the past several months to discuss their concerns about what they call a longstanding lack of diversity among troopers and their supervisors.

The talks were prompted earlier this year by a photo of a largely white graduating class at the state police academy, said Tamara Lanier, criminal justice chairman of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“We’ve gotten a number of complaints,” Lanier said. “There’s a concern that the process … is not in favor of diversity, is not promoting equal access to the opportunities.”

Nearly 4,500 blacks and 4,200 Hispanics have applied to be Connecticut state troopers since 2004, but only 28 African-Americans and 38 Hispanics graduated from the state police academy in that time frame, according to information obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests. Blacks and Hispanics account for a third of the applicants, but only 11 percent of academy graduates.

Over the same period, about 15,000 whites applied to be troopers and 527 graduated from the academy. The 1,100-member force is about 89 percent white, 5 percent black and 5 percent Hispanic, compared with a state population that is 12 percent black and 15 percent Hispanic, according to state police records and census estimates.

The 10 percent of the state police force that is African-American and Hispanic equals the minority hiring goal set in a three-decade-old court order that resulted from a 1982 federal discrimination lawsuit against state police, even though the state’s minority population has grown significantly since then.

Among the 223 state police officials ranked from sergeant to colonel, 10 are black and five are Hispanic. There are no black or Hispanic women among the higher ranks.

“It’s unacceptable,” said Scot X. Esdaile, president of the state NAACP. “There are a lot of concerns now about diversity in law enforcement. We’re tired of hearing excuses. They can do better. The needle has not moved at all.”

Commissioner Dora Schriro of the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which oversees state police, has been open to the group’s suggestions and told them the agency has been working hard to recruit more minorities, according to state police and the NAACP. No new plans to increase diversity have been announced.

Recruits face a background check, a written exam, physical agility testing and a polygraph test. Officials said many people don’t make it through the hiring process because they don’t score high enough on tests, take jobs with other departments and opt out for personal issues, among other reasons.

“We cannot make people take the state police written test, pass the written test or show up for other phases of the testing process,” said Connecticut Trooper 1st Class Kelly Grant, the first black trooper – and first woman – to lead the agency’s public information office.

Connecticut officials also said it isn’t clear why white recruits pass the state police written exam at higher rates than blacks and Hispanics. Since 2004, 95 percent of whites who took the test passed, compared with 74 percent of blacks and 80 percent of Hispanics, according to data obtained by the AP.

State police officials say they recruit in cities, target minority groups on social media and visit military bases and college campuses, as well as regularly review their hiring standards.

Police departments across the country are facing renewed calls to diversify their ranks in the wake of shootings of black men by white officers over the past two years that have strained police-community relations across the country. The strained relations may be deterring minorities from applying for cop jobs, according to a federal government report on police diversity.

The report also says police department screening methods have been shown to disproportionately disqualify minorities. People from minority – and often poor – communities are more likely to be disqualified by criminal background and credit checks, because they are more likely to have had contact with the criminal justice system and have lower credit scores, the report says.

Police in several Connecticut cities and towns also have come under scrutiny from the NAACP and other groups, in the wake of state reports over the past two years that said police were stopping black and Hispanic drivers and firing stun guns at minorities at disproportionate rates.

Last year, state legislators and Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy passed a law requiring police departments to implement guidelines to recruit, retain and promote minority police officers.

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