The Influence of Community Characteristics on Police Officers’ Approaches to Patrolling Latinos in Three Towns

Abstract

Race and policing research has identified both macro-level structural factors and micro-level racial meanings that contribute to racial disparities in policing outcomes. However, prior research has not examined how the various features of communal contexts shape officers’ construction of racial meanings. The current study, which is based on ethnographic ride-along interviews with and observations of 52 officers in three suburban communities of varying racial, ethnic, and class diversity in a northeastern state, weds symbolic interactionist and macro-level studies by examining how communal contexts shape both the meanings that police officers attach to Latinos in relation to other pan-ethnic groups and officers’ patrolling of Latinos. The author finds that communal features and processes condition officers’ racial schemas and patrolling practices in significant, variable ways across the three communities. How officers perceived and approached Latinos not only varied across the three towns but differed from that of other pan-ethnic groups. Variability in the communal features and processes influencing officers’ racial schemas and patrolling of racial minorities across these towns suggests the need for a theoretical approach that treats officers’ racial meanings and patrolling approaches as communally situated.