The Limits of Organizational Diversity: The Diversity Paradox in Policing

• In Event: Gender and Race at Work

Abstract

The ethno-racial composition of police departments is a matter of political and public concern. Evidence suggests that ethnoracial heterogeneity among the rank-and-file can improve police--community relations by fostering public trust, encouraging cooperation, and reducing misconduct. While diversity in policing tends to be measured at the department level, police departments are complex, multi-layered organizations, making the measurement and implementation of diversity far from straightforward. In this study, we draw on half a decade of daily scheduling and patrol assignment data from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to measure diversity at the department, district, and beat levels. We present two primary findings. First, despite the diversification of the department as a whole, deployment patterns show substantial racial homophily. Officers patrol with same-race colleagues far more often than would be expected under random assignment. We also find that the least common co-deployment is among black and white officers. Second, we document a paradoxical relationship between diversity at the district-level and diversity in co-deployment. The more diverse the pool of officers from which co-deployments may be drawn the less diverse the co-deployments.

Authors

• Samuel Donahue, Harvard University

• Gerard Torrats-Espinosa, Columbia University

• George Wood, Northwestern University