Minority under-representation in city and suburban policing
Last week’s tragic shootings in Baton Rouge, outside St. Paul, and in Dallas reignited police and community tensions, reminiscent of last year’s incidents in places such as Baltimore, North Charleston, and Staten Island.
While numerous and complicated historical, economic, and race-based factors underlie these tragic incidents, one area of ongoing focus is the degree to which the demographic profile of local law enforcement mirrors that of the communities they are charged with protecting. A protester arrested in Baton Rouge was quoted in the New York Times on this topic: “What you’re seeing is a situation much like Ferguson and other places where you have a majority-white force policing a majority-black city.” One possible consequence: A new study from Harvard’s Roland Fryer finds that black men and women are considerably more likely to encounter the use of force from police than their white counterparts.
Thus, places with the widest demographic disparities between law enforcement officers and local residents may need to pay special attention to their community policing strategies, as well as consider more proactive efforts to hire and retain diverse members of those communities. Last fall, Governing Magazine took an extensive look at racial and ethnic diversity in large local law enforcement agencies. Reporter Mike Maciag found that, on average, people of color on the force were underrepresented by a combined 24 percentage points compared to their share of the local population.