Social and Political Pillars of Police Diversity: An Institutional Exploration

Abstract

Police officers serve a public service role, as highlighted by scholarly literature on street-level bureaucracy. Thus, it matters whether police departments represent the social characteristics of communities. In socially diverse cities, police diversity promises to facilitate police–community interactions. However, to what extent are US police departments diversifying their personnel? This question is examined using time-series Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics surveys from 2008 to 2020. The baseline finding is that the presence of diverse police officers varies considerably across cities. Additional findings are that police diversity depends on social and political contexts underlying differences among police departments. The empirical analysis identifies social and political effects by modeling differential time trends. Furthermore, it examines the differential impacts of an independent variable on various quantiles of diversity. The study bridges the urban governance literature and the institutional pillars framework to explain differences in demographic representation across police departments.