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A Field Study of Racial Bias in Policing: Implications for Organizational Sciences

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Abstract

The deep roots of racial bias embedded in organizational (e.g., policing) systems and practices have had disturbing consequences for Black people in the US. This paper responds to the call to reduce racial bias against Black individuals in organizations by examining the policing decisions employed by narcotic enforcement agents when operating under different agency-driven performance strategies for controlling crime. Applying a multilevel design that considers narcotic offenses that are nested within individuals, we analyze narcotic arrest reports for a 19-month period from a US metropolitan city. Guided by recent research and theory on racial bias in policing, we develop and test hypotheses to determine (a) whether racial bias exist in the severity of charges issued to offenders, (b) whether these biases are influenced by two key organizational risk factors (officer job discretion and the organizational performance strategies employed to control crime), and (c) whether bias driven by risk factors occurs in the form of more severe charges for Black offenders, less severe charges for White offenders, or both. Findings from our study suggest that Black males received more severe charges for the same gram-for-gram narcotic offense than White males. Moreover, our findings suggest Black offenders received more severe charges in jurisdictions with a crime focus and less severe charges in jurisdictions that practice deterrence focus policing; however, White offenders received less severe charges under a crime-focused approach. Our findings offer several implications for organizational sciences and practice.

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Notes

  1. This research is supported by a grant from the US Department of Justice Innovative Prosecution Strategies program.

  2. At the time of this study, the US Drug Enforcement Administration considers marijuana a Schedule 1 narcotic substance (https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling).

  3. While our primary analyses only included Schedule 1 and 2 offenses, we also conducted additional analyses using all 5 drug schedules. Results can be made available upon request.

  4. A yoked match design joins together research subjects receiving the same stimuli or conditions (Salkind, 2012). In this case, all narcotic offenders in a given jurisdiction were subject to the same laws and policing practices; offenders were randomly stratified by gender, race, and grams of marijuana.

  5. We also analyzed Hypothesis 1 using a one-tailed dependent samples t-test on the 17 matched pairs and our results were essentially identical to the regression results.

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Acknowledgements

Special acknowledgement is given to Jason Thrower, J. D., for his insight into the legal system, and friendly reviewers, Rachel Williams, Russell Matthews, and Don Zhang.

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant from the US Department of Justice Innovative Prosecution Strategies program awarded to the Social Research and Evaluation Center (SREC) at Louisiana State University.

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Correspondence to Tracey Rizzuto.

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Rizzuto, T., Mitchell, T., Jackson, C. et al. A Field Study of Racial Bias in Policing: Implications for Organizational Sciences. J Bus Psychol 38, 63–74 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-022-09809-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-022-09809-z

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