Does an Increased Share of Black Police Officers Decrease Racial Discrimination in Law Enforcement?

2022 ◽  
pp. 107808742110702
Author(s):  
Sunyoung Pyo

Based on representative bureaucracy theory, the current study investigates whether increasing Black representation in police forces is negatively associated with racial discrimination in law enforcement. This study additionally investigates how associations may differ according to the organizational or environmental contexts of the forces. Results show that an increased share of Black officers is associated with decreased police-involved deaths of Black residents, but is not significantly associated with a change in order maintenance arrests of Black suspects. In addition, the negative association between Black representation and police-involved deaths of Black residents disappears when the percent of Black officers surpasses about 15 percent, especially in organizations where White officers comprise a larger share. These findings support the potential negative role of organizational socialization on the effectiveness of increasing the share of Black officers in policing, implying that additional long-term efforts to change organizational culture are needed to realize the benefits of enhancing Black representation.

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-194
Author(s):  
Noah Tsika

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, police censorship of motion pictures was a significant and always controversial index of the expansion of law enforcement agencies to include activities that many Americans deemed unbecoming of cops. As such, it offers considerable insight into contemporary debates over the scope of police power in the United States. Today’s arguments have deep roots, including in a practice that was far more prevalent—and far more contentious—than conventional histories allow. When it came to vetting motion pictures, the methods of municipal police departments varied widely. But they often illuminated broader problems: Detroit police officers who voted to ban anti-Nazi films were themselves outspoken white supremacists; Chicago cops who balked at cinema’s suggestions of eroticism were also, outside of departmental screening rooms, aggressively targeting sex workers; and Southern lawmen who sought to eliminate intimations of racial equality were known for their brutal treatment of Black residents. Police censorship of motion pictures took place not in a vacuum but within the ever-widening ambit of law enforcement, and it merits scrutiny as a measure of the authority, influence, and cultural identities of municipal cops.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8

Abstract It is practically impossible for police officers to do their jobs without biases or prejudices. Even when the office of the Police Constable does not allow it. The purpose of this paper is summed up in three headings: first, to highlight the extent of racism in the London Metropolitan Police for over three decades This is evidenced from several case studies of black police officer’s mistreatment in the London Police Service. Second, the effect of police culture as a breeding ground for racism in the police and third, providing an understanding of the trio concepts of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotype. The author relies on racial Postcolonial theories that have created and sustain a culture of racial superiority over the years. This is a qualitative study; the author relies on the reviewing of previous literature relating to the topic of police racism. Some of the findings are: it has proven very difficult to find a solution to racism so long as the racism in the wider British society has not been dealt with effectively enough to accommodate the constructed other. Police culture needs to be outlawed in the police service and racism needs to become a dismissible police unlawful act.


Author(s):  
Tammy Rinehart Kochel

PurposeDrawing from representative bureaucracy theory, hiring minority police officers has been a perpetual reform recommendation for improving tense police-community relationships with minority communities since the 1960s. The expectation is that minority officers will provide active/symbolic representation, but little is known about minority officers' experiences during racially tense situations. This paper examines whether black officers experienced double marginality in the context of prolonged protests against police in Ferguson, MO in 2014 and compares black vs. nonblack officers' self-assessments about their preparedness to handle the crisis, procedural justice during the crisis and mental and emotional effects on officers following protest policing.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth interviews with 45 police personnel who policed the Ferguson protests provide a rich description of the context and experiences through the lens of police officers. Surveys of 218 officers who conducted protest policing in Ferguson are used to compare the impact on black vs. non-black officers.FindingsThe results provide a detailed portrayal of the double marginality experienced by black officers while policing the Ferguson protests, but also demonstrate that black officers were resilient to the effects of that experience, showing significantly more favorable outcomes than their nonblack peers.Originality/valueThis is the only study to utilize a mixed methods approach with police officers who conducted protest policing to understand officers' experiences in the midst of a racially inflamed context. The findings provide support for policymakers interested in advocating and supporting hiring more minorities in policing.


Author(s):  
Anita Lam ◽  
Timothy Bryan

Abstract In contrast to quantitative studies that rely on numerical data to highlight racial disparities in police street checks, this article offers a qualitative methodology for examining how histories of anti-Blackness configure civilians’ experiences of present-day policing. Taking the Halifax Street Checks Report as our primary object of analysis, we apply an innovative dermatological approach, demonstrating how skin itself becomes meaningful when police officers and civilians make contact in the process of a street check. We explore how street checks become an occasion for epidermalization, whereby a law enforcement practice projects onto the skins of civilians locally specific histories and emotions. To think with skin, we focus on the narratives shared by African Nova Scotians, a group that has been street checked at higher rates than their white counterparts. By doing so, we argue that current debates about police street checks in Halifax must attend to the emotional stakes of police-initiated encounters in order to fully appreciate the lived experience of street checks for Black civilians.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Y. Franco ◽  
Angela E. Lee-Winn ◽  
Sara Brandspigel ◽  
Musheng L. Alishahi ◽  
Ashley Brooks-Russell

Abstract Background Syringe services programs provide sterile injection supplies and a range of health services (e.g., HIV and HEP-C testing, overdose prevention education, provision of naloxone) to a hard-to-reach population, including people who use drugs, aiming to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases. Methods We performed a qualitative needs assessment of existing syringe services programs in the state of Colorado in 2018–2019 to describe—their activities, needs, and barriers. Using a phenomenological approach, we performed semi-structured interviews with key program staff of syringe services programs (n = 11). All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and validated. A data-driven iterative approach was used by researchers to develop a coding scheme to organize the data into major themes found across interviews. Memos were written to synthesize main themes. Results Nearly all the syringe program staff discussed their relationships with law enforcement at length. All syringe program staff viewed having a positive relationship with law enforcement as critical to the success of their program. Main factors that influence the quality of relationships between syringe services programs and law enforcement included: (1) alignment in agency culture, (2) support from law enforcement leadership, (3) police officers’ participation and compliance with the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, which provides intensive case management for low-level drug offenders, and (4) implementation of the “Needle-Stick Prevention Law” and Drug Paraphernalia Law Exemption. All syringe program staff expressed a strong desire to have positive relationships with law enforcement and described how a collaborative working relationship was critical to the success of their programs. Conclusions Our findings reveal effective strategies to foster relationships between syringe services programs and law enforcement as well as key barriers to address. The need exists for both syringe services programs and law enforcement to devote time and resources to build a strong, positive partnership. Having such positive relationships with law enforcement has positive implications for syringe services program clients, including law enforcement being less likely to ticket persons for having used syringes, and encourage people who use drugs to seek services from syringe services programs, which can then lead them to other resources, such as housing, wound care, and substance use treatment programs.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 194
Author(s):  
Aaron Griffith

Though several powerful explorations of modern evangelical influence in American politics and culture have appeared in recent years (many of which illumine the seeming complications of evangelical influence in the Trump era), there is more work that needs to be done on the matter of evangelical understandings of and influence in American law enforcement. This article explores evangelical interest and influence in modern American policing. Drawing upon complementary interpretations of the “antistatist statist” nature of modern evangelicalism and the carceral state, this article offers a short history of modern evangelical understandings of law enforcement and an exploration of contemporary evangelical ministry to police officers. It argues that, in their entries into debates about law enforcement’s purpose in American life, evangelicals frame policing as both a divinely sanctioned activity and a site of sentimental engagement. Both frames expand the power and reach of policing, limiting evangelicals’ abilities to see and correct problems within the profession.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174889582110173
Author(s):  
Tobias Kammersgaard ◽  
Thomas Friis Søgaard ◽  
Mie Birk Haller ◽  
Torsten Kolind ◽  
Geoffrey Hunt

Recent years have seen trends within police to use different forms of “community policing” strategies that aim to foster closer relationships and trust with citizens, as well as an orientation toward “procedural justice” in law enforcement practices. Based on 25 interviews with police officers in two different police precincts in Denmark, this article explores the policing of ethnic minority youth in so-called “ghetto” areas from the perspectives of police officers. In doing this, we describe the specific challenges and strategies in implementing such policing methods in neighborhoods where some residents display low trust or even hostility toward the police. The article sheds light on the emotional, organizational, and practical challenges involved in doing community policing in marginalized neighborhoods and the way in which this shapes how community policing is being organized in practice.


2021 ◽  
pp. 009385482110247
Author(s):  
Meret S. Hofer

The functional breadth of the police role is a primary issue facing law enforcement. However, few empirical data examine how officers are experiencing an occupational environment characterized by an increasingly wider range of new (but routine) duties. I take a qualitative approach to explore experiences of work-role overload via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a sample of U.S. police officers ( N = 48). By applying the framework for thematic analysis, I find that work-role overload is a robust feature of police officers’ occupational experiences and presents in two ways: (a) through quantitative overload related to the excessive volume of work demands and (b) qualitative overload related to strained or diminished psychological resources. The findings provide valuable insights for improving the theoretical understanding of work-role overload among police in light of international trends toward broadening law enforcement’s social functions and add to contemporary discussions to “defund the police.”


2021 ◽  
pp. 019372352110121
Author(s):  
Anthony C. Peavy ◽  
Emilee T. Shearer

Throughout history, water as a tool for racialized oppression has been in constant evolution. From utilizing water as a passage to transport slaves, to using fire hoses as a form of punishment toward Black people, liquified racism is a concept we coined to represent past and present racial discrimination through the use of water. In this paper, we conducted a critical content analysis of the USA swim team and the swim team pages of the top ten Division I men’s and women’s college swimming programs to uncover how liquified racism is prominent within these contexts. Findings suggest that Blackness is racialized, tokenized, and perpetually silenced on swimming websites. We argue that Black individuals lacking representation in this sport, along with discourse surrounding competitive swimming, ultimately promotes whiteness, racial hierarchies, and an illusion of postracism.


Author(s):  
Wendi Pollock ◽  
Natalia D Tapia ◽  
Deborah Sibila

The death of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 again left people asking why U.S. police officers so commonly resort to the use of deadly force when interacting with Black individuals. The current article proposes that media, combined with cultivation theory and social cognition concepts may create implicit biases that are potential contributors to this problem. Police officers have a greater vulnerability to these biases because intake of crime-related media positively predicts their interest in selecting law enforcement as a career. Other predictors of an interest in working in law enforcement, and implications of these findings, are discussed.


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