Predicting Race-Specific Drug Arrests: The Underexplored Role of Police Organizational Characteristics

• In Event: 180 - Regular Session. Deviance and Social Control

Abstract

This study builds on research that explains why differences in drug arrest rates exist across space and by race, and sheds light how these differences are produced. Law enforcement agencies act as the intermediary between legislative policy and frontline officers who implement policy and make arrests, and therefore serve a unique position managing social control. Using data gathered from the Law Enforcement Management and Administration Statistics: 2000 Sample Survey of Law Enforcement Agencies, the Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data: Arrests by Age, Sex, and Race, 2000, and the 2000 decennial Census for city-level demographic information, this study highlights the crucial role police agencies play in determining drug arrests across space and by race. Findings indicate that (1) police agencies with specialized drug unit personnel have higher drug arrest rates. The effect on black drug arrests is almost twice that of the effect on white drug arrests; (2) police agencies with incentive structures to punitively enforce drug laws also have higher drug arrest rates, with impacts twice as strong on black populations versus white; (3) police agencies with higher percentages of non-white male police officers have higher black and white drug arrest rates. The effects on black drug arrest rates are half that of the effects on white drug arrest rates, indicating the presence of non-white male officers within police agencies may contribute to eroding cultures suspicious of minority populations resulting in less targeting of blacks for drug arrests.

Author

• Ardavan Darab Davaran, Washington State University