Law Enforcement - A Changing Police Force

Many police departments have made a concerted effort to hire more minority officers. Are police forces starting to resemble the diverse population they serve?

The graphic shows that more women and minorities appear among the ranks of law enforcement personnel in large cities in 2000 than in 1990. Roughly 38% of officers were a member of a minority, up from about 30% in 1990. Just over 16% of the force were women, up from 12% in 1990. The shifts represent some significant growth rates. In the 1990s, the percentage of the force that belonged to a minority climbed 28% and the percentage that were females climbed 35%.

The Department of Justice uses a ratio to calculate the racial composition of police forces in relation to city residents. ³ From 1990 to 2000, the average ratio increased from.59 to.63 for minorities overall. Police departments had 63 minority police officers for every 100 minority residents in 2000, up from 59 officers from 1990. In other words, the racial and ethnic makeup of police departments were slightly more representative of the cities they served.

But there is still much work to be done. Large cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago tend to be ethnic and racial melting pots. As the table shows, the largest police forces in the nation do have more officers of African American and Hispanic descent. Their ranks do not yet represent the diverse population of their cities.

Blacks and Hispanics in the Largest Police Forces

	% of Blacks, Sworn Personnel, 1990	% of Blacks, Sworn Personnel, 1990	% of City Population that are Black, 2000	% of Hispanics Sworn Personnel, 1990	% of Hispanics Sworn Personnel, 1990	% of City Population that are Hispanic, 2000
New York	12.6	13.3	27.0	12.1	17.8	27.0
Los Angeles	13.4	13.6	11,2	21.0	33.1	47.0
Chicago	23.6	25.9	37.0	6.0	12.7	26.0
Houston	14.4	19.4	25.0	11.4	17.9	37.0
Philadelphia	23.2	34.5	43.0	2.8	5.6	9.0

Some of the most striking gaps occur in the higher ranks. According to a 1999 study by the New York Times, of the 499 captains in the New York Police Department, 94% are white. Of the 237 inspectors and chiefs who run the force, 92% are white. Decisions to hire officers, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains are based on test scores. Some minority recruits contend they just don't perform as well as their white counterparts on promotion exams, making it difficult for them to rise through the ranks. In a study of 4,706 officers who passed the entrance exam and entered the Police Academy from 1997 to 1999, 65% were white, 20% Hispanic, and 11% black.

One study suggests a real benefit associated with more minority officers. John J. Donohue III of the Stanford Law School and Steven D. Levitt of the University of Chicago analyzed data from 134 large cities from 1977 to 1993. They discovered that when minority officers patrolled neighborhoods largely composed of their own race, fewer arrests were made of people of that race. Also, while own-race policing had little effect on violent crime arrests, it appears to have significantly reduced property crime arrests. Could black or Hispanic officers be real deterrents to crime in their neighborhoods? Could they even be held up as role models and boost the image of the police department in general?

Law enforcement has always had a strained relationship with minority communities. In a recent Harris Poll, 56% of both blacks and Hispanics thought police treat one or more of the races unfairly, while only 27% of whites claimed to feel this way. In a Henry J. Kaiser, Harvard University, and Washington Post poll, 37% of blacks and 20% of Hispanics and Asians claim to have been stopped by police because of their race. In a five year study of the Cincinnati, Ohio police department, police confirm drawing their weapons 39 times during traffic stops, drug sweeps, the interrogation of suspects, and the detaining of people on the street; in all but one case they involved African-American citizens.

Highly publicized cases of white cops and black victims in recent years have only served to fan charges of corruption and bigotry. In 1991, Rodney King was beaten by four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. In 1997, Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was brutalized by Officer Justin Volpe with a toilet plunger in a New York police station bathroom. In February 1999, four white police officers approached Amadou Diallo outside his South Bronx apartment and, in the confusion that followed, shot him 41 times, sparking public protests (and a song by Bruce Springsteen). In April 2001, a white police officer shot and killed unarmed Timothy Thomas in a Cincinnati alley. It was the fifth shooting of an African American male in six months by Cincinnati police, and the fifteenth since 1995. Three days of riots followed, prompting the mayor to impose a curfew.

In recent years the relationship between law enforcement and minorities has become even more strained through the practice of racial profiling. The next panel will examine this issue.

Sources: Chart data from U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Police Departments in Large Cities, 1990-2000, available online at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov; Other data from the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online, located at http://albany.edu/sourcebook/1995/pdf/110015.pdf; "New York Police Department Among Least Racially Diverse." Jet, March 29, 1999, p. 40; Anglen, Robert. "Police Draw Guns on Blacks." Cincinnati Enquirer, April 21, 2002. "Justice Isn't Color Blind." Business Week, May 3, 1999, p. 27. "Most New Yorkers See Police Bias, Poll Finds." Available online from http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/nyt/polls.htm. Data retrieved October 25, 2002.