Lost in Translation: Latinos & the Police

• In Event: Latin@ Criminology Panel 1: Setting a New Agenda for Research, Policy, and Justice

Abstract

Scholars interested in understanding the relationship between Latinos and the police note that there is a paucity of research on this subject. This pattern is beginning to change, and new research addresses a variety of issues related to police-Latino relations including Latinos’ perceptions of the police, the policing of Latino residents, and the intersections between policing and immigration enforcement. In this presentation, I critically evaluate the growing empirical research on this topic and identify avenues for future inquiry. Drawing from my own work, I discuss the remarkable gap between police perceptions of their interactions with Latino residents, and Latino residents’ perception of that same activity. Most notably, Latinos describe policing as racial profiling, while officers insist that they are color-blind. I argue that both perceptions, which focus on the motivations of individual officers, obscure the mechanisms behind racialized policing. I argue that we should understand racial disparities in policing as the product of racial laws (which make Latinos’ behaviors “illegal”) and the rise of order-maintenance policing, which gives officers new tools and incentives to enforce these laws.

Author

• Amada Armenta, University of Pennsylvania