Representative Bureaucracy and Racial Profiling in Missouri

Abstract

There have been inquiries regarding the extent, nature, and causes of racial profiling. Numerous studies have been and continue to explore whether and how the experience of people of color differ from those of majorities with regards to racial profiling. Likewise, there has also been interests in understanding whether people of color experience this practice due in part to the geographic area that specific police officers serves. Though this issue of staffing is at the center of this phenomena, current findings are divided, and evidence is mixed. Employing the 2013 Missouri Attorney General racial profiling annual report along with the 2013 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics report, this current exploratory study aims to examine whether Missouri law enforcement agencies that are less racially representative of the population they serve have correspondingly higher rates of enforcement against people of color. Utilizing a total of 76 Missouri Police Departments, the researcher discovered that on a departmental level, the most expected relationships between representativeness and outcomes were not observed. However, among municipal organizations, Black representation was correlated with higher search rates for Black citizens. Likewise, positive correlations for contraband rates were observed for Hispanic representativeness. Implications for future research are discussed.