Does police organization produce disparity? An examination of racial disparity in drug Arrests

• In Event: Fifty Years of Drug Arrests: Crime Control or Oppression? (Session 2)

Abstract

Racial disparities in law enforcement do not result simply from the biases of individual officers. They may also arise from the very organization and incentive structures of police agencies. Drug enforcement at the local level is carried out by police officers assigned to two types of organizational units: those assigned to a beat, district, or other geographic area and those assigned to citywide specialized units. Beat officers are responsible for answering citizen calls for service and are usually quite familiar with the neighborhood they patrol. Officers in specialized units are tasked with dealing with specific crime problems and move throughout the city as needed. We hypothesize that drug arrests by specialized units exhibit greater racial disparity than those by beat officers because specialized unit officers are under greater pressure to demonstrate performance through arrests in response to policy concerns and are less familiar with neighborhood circumstances and residents. We evaluate this hypothesis with crime and arrest data at the neighborhood level in St. Louis, Missouri. Findings from this study address the unintended outcomes of the organization of local police departments and may be useful for changing organizational routines to promote more effective and equitable drug enforcement.

Authors

• Sherri Schaefer, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Richard Rosenfeld, University of Missouri - St. Louis