Assessing the long-term effects of officer race on police attitudes towards the community: a case for representative bureaucracy theory

Abstract

This study examines longitudinal changes in police officer attitudes towards the community within the theoretical context of representative bureaucracy theory. The sample consists of 405 male Caucasian, African-American and Latino/Hispanic patrol officers who began employment with the LAPD from 1985 to 1991 under affirmative action hiring. The same officers comprising the panel study were surveyed at two points in time, 1992 (Wave 1) and 2007 (Wave 2). Results indicated that, over the study's 15 year time frame, African-American and Latino officers significantly increased their desire to engage in active representation or 'partnerships' with the community. Also discovered was a similar time effect among Caucasian officers, who at Wave 1 of the study held significantly lower desires for community interaction than the minority officer sample. Overall, the study findings lend support to representative bureaucracy theory's general assumption that establishing racial parity between police and citizens may increase the willingness of officers to represent the interests of others with similar demographic backgrounds. IntroductionThis study examines, and attempts to explain from a theoretical perspective, the longterm effects of police officer attitudes towards the community they serve as a function of officer race and ethnicity. The study setting is the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department), which imposed mandatory minority officer recruitment, hiring and promotion policies beginning in the early 1980s as a means of creating racial balance between the Department and the community it served for purposes of improving relations between police and citizens. The study design is unique in that it involves longitudinal data gathered from the same police officers in 1992 and in 2007. This 'panel' study design enables the assessment of both immediate and long-term attitude change between minority and non-minority officers. It also enables the statistical evaluation of differences in attitudes between Caucasian, African-American and Latino officers' attitudes towards their perception of the community they serve while in transition from LAPD's traditional policing culture in 1992 to a new community-based policing culture which began in mid-1990. From a theoretical standpoint, this study provides a longitudinal test of the basic underlying assumption of representative bureaucracy theory that, by increasing racial parity between an organizational workforce and population it serves (i.e. 'passive representation'), representation of the interests (i.e. 'active representation') of clients with a similar

Why do officers support community policing? A cross‐departmental and cross‐temporal comparison

“…However, even within the same department, police officers are not uniformly supportive of community policing practices (Lurigio & Skogan, 1994). Officer demographics (Lasley et al, 2011;Lewis et al, 1999;Lurigio & Skogan, 1994;Novak et al, 2003;Skogan & Hartnett, 1999;Smith et al, 2005) and situational factors (Kearns, 2017(Kearns, , 2018 have been put forth as potential explanations for variations in support for community policing, although there is little consistency across the literature. Below we summarize the findings of prior work on factors that may impact officer support for community policing and outline the theoretically expected relationships, where applicable.…”

“…Indeed, research shows that community policing can improve public views of law enforcement (Gill, Weisburd, Telep, Vittner, & Bennett, ; Weisburd & Eck, ) while reducing views of disorder (Gill, Weisburd, Telep, Vitter, & Bennett, ) and potentially crime rates (Sozer & Merlo, ). Yet, while the vast majority of police departments state that their officers engage in community policing practices (Weine, Younis, & Polutnik, ), individual officers show varying levels of support for it (Lasley, Larson, Kelso, & Brown, ; Lewis, Rosenberg, & Sigler, ; Lurigio & Skogan, ; Novak, Alarid, & Lucas, ; Skogan & Hartnett, ; Smith, Novak, Frank, & Lowenkamp, ).…”

“…In Chicago, African American officers were consistently the most supportive of community policing, followed by Hispanic officers, and then White officers (Lurigio & Skogan, ; Skogan & Hartnett, ). In Los Angeles, racial minority officers were more supportive of community–police connections and those views improved over time (Lasley et al, ). Similarly, in Kansas City, MO, racial minority officers were more likely to think community policing would be effective both in theory and in practice but were no more likely to use community policing daily (Novak et al, ).…”

“…In Racine, Rosenberg et al (2008) pooled data for analyses but did note that officers were more supportive of community policing in Wave 2. In Los Angeles, Lasley et al () similarly noted an increase in officer support for community policing over time.…”

“…There is no standard way to measure officer support for community policing. Some measures have relied on a single question on: willingness to address neighborhood issues with the community (Lurigio & Skogan, ; O'Shea, ; Paoline et al, ), the efficacy of community policing in both theory and practice (Novak et al, ), support for adopting community policing as a department (Cheurprakobkit, ), or support for building relationships with the community (Lasley et al, ). Some studies have measured support using multiple measures for a single component of community policing (Haarr, ; Lee & Lee, ; Pelfrey, ; Sun et al, ).…”