Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Although the conventional wisdom holds that increasing the number of minorityofficers will enhance residents' perceptions of police and the criminal justicesystem, further systematic investigation of this hypothesis may be needed.Building on the group-position thesis, the representative bureaucracy theory,and prior research, this study investigates whether perceived minority policepresence within residents' neighborhoods affects residents' perceptions ofcriminal injustice, whether this effect is more pronounced for minorityresidents and in minority neighborhoods, and whether perceived minority policepresence has a stronger effect on perceptions of criminal injustice for minorityresidents in more integrated and white neighborhoods than minority residents inminority neighborhoods. Analyses of data collected from Los Angeles, CA, showthat residents perceive a lower level of criminal injustice when they reportthat officers in their neighborhoods are not white-dominated, and this findingis not dependent on the respondent's race/ethnicity or the racial/ethniccomposition of the neighborhood. In addition, perceived minority police presenceseems to have a weak to no effect on residents' perceptions of criminalinjustice for Hispanic communities. We discuss these findings and theirimplications for theory, research, and policy.
We want to especially thank Daniel Mears for his feedback on the previousdraft. We also want to thank Scott Decker, Robert Kane, Mike Reisig, andEric Stewart for their helpful comments and suggestions and Natalie Todakfor her research assistance. We extend special thanks to Hubert Williams,the Police Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation for supporting the datacollection. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors anddo not necessarily reflect those of the Police Foundation and the BradleyFoundation. Furthermore, we are very grateful to the Editors and anonymousreviewers for their constructive feedback and insights.