Race, Politics, and Public Safety: A Panel Study of U.S. Highway Patrol and State Police Strength, 1981-2015

Abstract

This study assesses the social, political, economic, and traffic-/travel-related predictors of sworn highway patrol and state police strength in the United States between 1981 and 2015. Fixed-effects estimates based on analyses of 1,635 state-years indicate that theoretical accounts centered on racial threat theory, partisan politics, and gendered politics in part explain variation in this outcome. Findings suggest that changes in population density, the tax base, the percentage of the population without a high school degree, violent crime rates, and spending on social welfare at the state level, as well as shifts in local law enforcement strength, also influence state police and patrol organization strength over this period. Surprisingly, fluctuations in the number of state traffic fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled and the number of driver’s licenses per 100,000 state population—two seemingly important traffic-/travel-related factors—have no impact on the rate of state police and patrol officers per 100,000 population.

Determinants of Variation in State Concealed Carry Laws, 1970–2016

“…Police departments and governments whose jurisdictions have higher official crime rates may be less effective and unable to properly safeguard its citizens (Malone 2018a, 2018b). Expectedly, previous research finds that localities with relatively few police officers, higher levels of crime, and higher levels of fear of crime have higher rates of firearm demand and applications for concealed carry licenses (Gau ; Kleck and Kovandzic ; McDowall and Loftin ; Young, McDowall, and Loftin ).…”

“…Racial and ethnic threat are pertinent to a variety of state‐level social control outcomes as well (Carmichael and Burgos ; Jacobs and Carmichael ; Jacobs, Malone, and Iles ; Malone 2018a, 2018b). For instance, in each of the previously cited studies—which respectively examine such diverse topics as the number of juveniles sentenced to life in prison, the presence of the death penalty, total adult imprisonments, the severity of drug laws, and police strength—the authors test and find support for the speculation that large or expanding racial or ethnic minority groups in a jurisdiction inherently threaten the political and social dominance of majority whites (Bobo and Hutchings ).…”

Mediating Peace through Local Tradition of Cross-Religious Community in Saparua Island, Moluccas

“…The people of Moluccas remember 19th January, 1999, as a dark day in their history. The community of the cross-religious (Muslim and Christian) "Basudara People" faced a very random war that lasted a long time when social conflicts with religious roots broke out (Klinken, 2007;Triono, 2002;Ratnawati, 2006;Amirrachman, 2007;Bartels, 2011;Qurtuby, 2016;Okpevra, 2017;Malone, 2018;Kate et al, 2019;Torras-Gomez et al, 2019;Matakena et al, 2020;Saimima et al, 2020). The conflict started in Ambon and "burned" across all of Moluccas, all the way to the North Moluccas.…”

“…The power of communal living was weakened due to the struggle over the importance of regional customs. Saparua Island's Salam -Sarane (Muslim-Christian) communities view and identify with one another as part of a single customary community arrangement and share the same local traditional values, despite their religious differences (Bartels, 2017;Malone, 2018). Belief in the equal value of all cultural practices breeds optimism and the will to coexist peacefully (Tanamal, 2002;Matakena et al, 2020;Saimima et al, 2020).…”

“…The loosening of local traditional institutions during the conflict is not in contradiction with this view at all. On the contrary, the power hegemony of the new order with its political uniformity (Malone, 2018) caused the weakening of local traditional institutions that were previously formed as an element to unite inter-religious communities. However, for them, the weakness of the institutions cannot be separated from this power hegemony of the new order.…”