A Few Bad Apples: An Empirical Assessment of Racial Disparities in Policing

• In Event: Organizational Dynamics and Individual Discretion: A Top-Down Assessment of Police Practice and Perception (Sponsored by Division of Policing)

Abstract

While research has focused on identifying racial disparities in policing, minimal research has focused on remediating those disparities. This study begins to fill this gap in research by analyzing data from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) from 2012 to 2015 to determine which police officers engaged in racially-disparate behavior after accounting for when, where, and under what circumstances they conducted their daily work. Two sets of policy-relevant questions were then explored to better understand the viability of evaluating potential policy interventions to remediate disparities in policing: (1) Does officer demographic information predict who engages in racially disparate policing? (2) Is racially disparate police behavior influenced by the presence (or lack of) situational opportunities to contact citizens with racial minority identities. Results showed that disparities in stops and arrests were perpetuated by only 5% of the entire sample of CPD officers. Officer demographics did not consistently predict racially disparate behavior. However, this behavior was influenced by situational factors related to where officers work and who they work with. The implications of these findings for future research and police reform are discussed in detail.

Author

• Travis Carter, University of South Florida