| Police departments, as public agencies, receive their mandate for social control from their constituency, and more specifically, from the voting population within their districts. Subsequently, officers determine the methods of crime control and order maintenance that will fulfill the law enforcement wishes of those voters. Applying Breit and Horowitz's (1979) model of statistical discrimination to police officers, it is hypothesized that this identification with the voting constituency leads to a more sympathetic and conciliatory method of law enforcement with that segment of the district population. However, the further along the diversity spectrum a citizen falls from the basic demographic characteristics of the voting population, the less likely an officer is to identify with him/her, and the more forceful and punitive the method of law enforcement will be. Implications for officer training and educational requirements of recruits will be discussed in light of the research findings. |
Updated 05/20/2006