Abstract
This chapter presents an extensive analysis of changes and trends in racial representation across US law enforcement agencies. Our analysis includes law enforcement and civilian demographics across more than 1500 US counties for the period between 1993 and 2007. We then take a closer look at passive representation in policing in America’s 100 largest cities for the period between 1993 and 2013. In both cases, we show that passive representation has steadily decreased over time. Law enforcement agencies today are less representative of the populations they serve than they were two decades ago. Representation varies from group to group, with Blacks experiencing the most extreme underrepresentation. Finally, these changes in representation coincide with significant changes in the size and nature of law enforcement agencies, suggesting that decreases in representation may be caused by unrepresentative hiring practices.
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Kennedy, B.A., Butz, A.M., Lajevardi, N., Nanes, M.J. (2017). Passive Representation in American Policing: Trends and Changes, 1993–2013. In: Race and Representative Bureaucracy in American Policing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53991-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53991-1_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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Online ISBN: 978-3-319-53991-1
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