Risky Situations: Sources of Racial Disparity in Police Behavior (original) (raw)
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Justice Quarterly, 2006
Since the 1960s, one of the major reform efforts in law enforcement has been to increase the number of Black Americans within police agencies and on patrol in the streets. The general premise behind these efforts has been that increased diversity will improve police-community relations and will decrease biased police behavior, particularly against Black citizens. Policies seeking to reform policing through increasing the numbers of African American officers have been implemented with little empirical evidence that an officer's race (or ethnicity) is actually related to their behavior towards citizens, in particular arrest decisions. Using data from systematic social observations of police-citizen encounters in Cincinnati, OH, this study examines the influence of officer race on arrest outcomes, focusing on the behavior of Black officers. Findings suggest that officer race has direct influence on arrest outcomes and there are substantive differences between White and Black officers in the decision to arrest. In general, White officers in our study were more likely to arrest suspects than Black officers, but Black suspects were more likely to be arrested when the decision maker was a Black officer.
The current work explored law enforcement officers’ racial bias in decisions to shoot criminal suspects as well as their self-reported beliefs about Black versus White suspects. In addition, this work examined what factors contribute to officers’ racial biases and the likelihood of having these biases eliminated. Examination of the officers’ explicit attitudes toward Black people and their beliefs about the criminality and difficulty of Black suspects revealed strong relationships with the quality of their contact with Black people on the job and in their personal lives. In addition, officers with negative compared to more positive beliefs about the criminality of Black people were more likely to tend toward shooting unarmed Black suspects on a shooting simulation. However, officers with positive contact with Black people in their personal lives were particularly able to eliminate these biases with training on the simulation. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the training of law enforcement personnel.
Racial Bias in Policing: Why We Know Less Than We Should
There is a shocking dearth of scientific certainty about how to assess racial bias in policing. Specifically lacking is an examination of the causal relationship between officer psychological attitudes and their interactions with minority suspects. Do officer racial attitudes lead to more racially biased police behavior? Why do we, as psychologists and scientists, know less than we should about psychological attitudes and their effects on police behavior in the field? To answer this question, we first review what researchers have learned given the available types of existing data: crime data, officer data, and public opinion data. Next, we discuss how insufficient access and lack of rigorous design have detracted from thorough research on racial bias in policing. Finally, we detail how new opportunities for social scientists have the potential to overcome these barriers and conduct rigorous psychological research on equity in policing.
The consequences of race for police officers' responses to criminal suspects
Psychological Science, 2005
The current work examined police officers' decisions to shoot Black and White criminal suspects in a computer simulation. Responses to the simulation revealed that upon initial exposure to the program, the officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects. However, after extensive training with the program, in which the race of the suspect was unrelated to the presence of a weapon, the officers were able to eliminate this bias. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the elimination of racial biases and the training of police officers.
The color of safety: The psychology of race and policing
Discussions of issues confronting law enforcement can be enhanced by using a social psychological perspective that emphasizes the importance of contexts’ influence on internal capacities and characteristics to the understanding of human behavior. This chapter shows the utility of such an approach within the context of racial disparities in policing. We focus on judgments of fairness, especially as it pertains to how officers treat people and make decisions, and outline how racial disparities drive the perception that law enforcement is procedurally unfair and serve to erode public trust and support for the law. Attention is then turned to how normal mental functioning that is essential to social behavior can promote such disparities in even the most egalitarian individuals. In particular, we describe (1) the role of implicit racial bias and how automatic associations between racial groups and criminality can motivate differential behavior and (2) the importance of social identity and how threats to that identity can evoke responses that facilitate racial disparities.
Police organizational factors, the racial composition of the police, and the probability of arrest
Justice Quarterly, 2005
- Police organizational factors, the racial composition of the police, and the probability of arrest, Justice Quarterly, 22:1, 30-57, While past research has considered the effects of police organizational characteristics on various outcomes, including arrest rates, relatively little research has explored the role of the racial composition of the police and its association with race-specific arrest rates. Furthermore, no research has explored the association between arrest probabilities for Black and White offenders and police organizational factors. Using data from the 2000 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the 2000 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), and the 2000 decennial Census, the present exploratory study employs multilevel modeling to examine the association between police organizational factors including the percentage of the police force that is Black and arrest probabilities for offenders involved in 19,099 aggravated assaults and 100,859 simple assaults across 105 small cities. Results show that for simple assaults, the relative size of the Black police force is associated with the risk of arrest for both Black and White offenders. Furthermore, departments with relatively more Black police officers are found to have the largest gap in the arrest probabilities for White and Black offenders, although Whites are more likely to be arrested for assaults than Blacks, regardless of the racial composi-David Eitle is an assistant professor at Florida International University. He received his PhD in sociology from Indiana University at Bloomington. His current research interests include examining the role of school factors on student deviance, the effects of racial stratification on crime and criminal justice responses, and the relationship between exposure to adversity and crime. POLICE ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS, RACIAL COMPOSITION AND ARREST 31 tion of the police. Results also show those departments with more written policy directives, relatively larger administrative component, a higher educational-level requirement, and centralized police departments have the highest arrest probabilities. Implications of these findings and recommendations for further research are discussed.
Searching for Efficient Enforcement: Officer Characteristics and Racially Biased Policing
Review of Law & Economics, 2007
This study empirically investigates whether racial and ethnic differences in police searches of stopped drivers reflect efficient enforcement or biased policing. Null hypotheses consistent with efficient enforcement are derived from alternative assumptions regarding police objectives: 1) police seek to maximize public safety, and 2) police seek to maximize the hit rate. We use both an outcomes-based non-parametric analysis and a standard benchmarking parametric approach (regression analysis). Both approaches yield the same results: law enforcement officers display both personal and police cultural bias in their propensity to search African American and Latino drivers. African American and Latino status tends to lower the guilt signal required for police suspicion. Further, white officers police differently than their African American and Latino colleagues. White officers are 73 percent of the sworn police force, conduct 88 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 20 percent. Latino officers are 11 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 8 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 24 percent. African American officers are 15 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 4 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 26 percent. The preferential treatment of white drivers by police is attenuated with increases in the fraction of racial and ethnic minority residents in the county where the stop occurred.
Is Representation Enough? Racial Disparities in Levels of Force and Arrests by Police
Public Administration Review, 2020
The research in representative bureaucracy that examines the extent to which racial congruence impacts bureaucrats' decisions is mixed. This study adds to this literature by examining the impact of representative bureaucracy on the level of force that police officers use and whether they make an arrest in use of force encounters, while taking into consideration key situational conditions. Using individual-level data from New Orleans to estimate this impact, the authors find that racial congruence and incongruence impact policing outcomes even in the presence of situational shortcuts that cue decision-making. The findings show that the benefits of representation are conditional on the outcome. Black officers are less likely to use higher levels of force on Black civilians. Yet both Black and White officers are less likely to arrest White civilians in use of force encounters. This suggests that interactions in which bureaucrats have less discretion (e.g., arrests) may offer limited opportunities for active representation. Evidence for Practice • Black officers, compared with White officers, are less likely to use severe force against Black civilians. • White and Black officers are less likely to arrest White civilians in use of force encounters. • All officers may benefit from understanding how and when racial shortcuts cue their decision-making processes.
The Consequences of Race for Police Officers' Responses to Criminal Suspects, 16 Psychol
2005
The current work examined police officers' decisions to shoot Black and White criminal suspects in a computer simulation. Responses to the simulation revealed that upon initial exposure to the program, the officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects. However, after extensive training with the program, in which the race of the suspect was unrelated to the presence of a weapon, the officers were able to eliminate this bias. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the elimination of racial biases and the training of police officers.