The Effects of Demographic Similarity on Procedural Justice during Police-Community Encounters

• In Event: Measuring Bias and Procedural Justice during Police-Community Encounters (Organized by the Division of Policing)

Abstract

For the past half century, reformers have recommended that police organizations seek greater diversity among their members to better reflect the communities they serve and improve police-community relations. The assumption is that two individuals who perceive themselves as similar will evaluate each other, and treat each other, more positively than two individuals who perceive themselves as dissimilar. In the absence of additional information, two strangers meeting for the first time will draw upon stereotypes to form first impressions. These stereotypes or biases (based on race/ethnicity, gender, age and other characteristics), both positive and negative, can influence perceptions of the encounter. While theory and prior research document these social group processes, to our knowledge the similarity or matching hypothesis has not been explicitly tested looking at procedural justice during police-community interactions. Using online survey data from more than 21,000 interactions between the police and community members from a sample of 78 cities throughout the United States, we examine this issue. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that community members—in demographically similar encounters with police— will rate the officers’ behavior more favorably than community members in demographically dissimilar encounters. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Authors

• Jon Maskaly, University of Texas at Dallas

• Dennis P. Rosenbaum, University of Illinois at Chicago