Policing and Race

• Author: James D. Ward,Charles E. Menifield
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12751
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017

Policing and Race 159

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 2, pp. 159–161. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12751.

Policing and Race

Charles E. Menifield is professor of

public affairs at the University of Missouri-

Columbia where he serves as Associate

Dean for academic programs. He is author/

editor of five books and numerous articles

and book chapters. His most recent research

appeared in

State and Local Government

Review

and

Journal of Public Budgeting

Accounting and Financial Management

.

E-mail : menifieldc@missouri.edu

James D. Ward teaches in the School of

Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers

University-Newark and has published

extensively on issues of social justice,

racial profiling, and local government

reforms. A former National Council

member of the American Society for Public

Administration (2011–14), he is a founding

member of ASPA ’ s Ethics and Standards

Implementation Committee and was chief

organizer and chair of the Mini-Conference

on Policing and Race (January 29–30, 2016

in Cincinnati, OH).

E-mail : james.ward@rutgers.edu

Symposium

Introduction

P olice stops, implicit bias, use of deadly force,

and claims that law enforcement subscribes to a

view that some minority groups are predisposed

to criminal activity have made policing and race one

of the most highly charged topics in American public

policy. There is no issue more salient as arguments

persist that it is steeped in institutional, societal, and

cultural norms.

Reports of police interactions with African Americans

have brought renewed attention to the subject.

Central to the issue is the pretextual stop, wherein law

enforcement officers stop a person on the pretext of a

minor traffic violation, but the real motivating factor

is to search for evidence of criminal activity. When

the race or ethnicity of the person stopped is the sole

motivating factor for the stop, the practice of racial

profiling becomes evident. Another issue central to

policing and race is the notion of implicit bias, used

by social psychologists to suggest that even during

nonracially motivated stops, heightened perceptions

of threat—especially that associated with Black

males—explains the racial disparities in the police ’ s

use of force. Finally, it has been suggested that racial

profiling, and other implicit or explicit practices, are

better explained through a broader understanding of

institutional racism.

Law enforcement, as a critical institution in many

societies, is charged with ensuring that laws are

faithfully adhered to and protecting the rights of all

persons. Yet the power to protect citizens’ rights and

enforce laws comes with significant discretionary

authority. From the perspective of street-level

bureaucrats, such discretion may be used to engage

persons in a just and fair manner—or to engage

in biased and unjust behavior. To the extent that

behavior is predicated on distinctions of race and

ethnicity diminishes the very foundations upon which

most Western-style democracies are established.

The literature is replete with studies that examine

policing and race from a variety of perspectives. These

include examining public perceptions of police, racial

profiling, lethal force, and implicit bias in interactions

with minority groups. This symposium contributes to

the discussion by offering paradigms from multiple

disciplines and providing the most up-to-date research

at the intersection of public administration, law

enforcement, and public policy. This multifaceted

perspective is necessary when striving toward

comprehensive approaches aimed at addressing

both the symptoms and causes of policing and race

problems. In most instances, whether or not lethal

force is used, perceptions of biased behavior erode the

trust and confidence that is so essential to effective

policing in many communities.

The first research on policing and race to appear

in Public Administration Review (Ward 2002 )

investigated legislation before Congress (Senate Bill

19 of the 107th Congress— The Traffic Stops Statistics

Study Act of 2001 ) that would have introduced a

national database for public officials to ascertain the

extent of alleged racially motivated police stops and

measures to address the practice. Most observers

attribute the bill not becoming law to events of

September 11, 2001. Whether such data collection

would have curbed the frequency of police-involved

shootings of unarmed African American men in recent

years is up for debate. Yet, the call for a national

database and restrictions on racially motivated

pretextual stops remain highly salient, as exemplified

in the contributions to this symposium.

Def‌i ning Citizenship

Charles Epp, Steven Maynard-Moody, and Donald

Haider-Markel ( 2017 ), in “Beyond Profiling: The

Institutional Sources of Racial Disparities in Policing,”

argue that the investigatory (pretextual) stop is at

the heart of the problem regarding biased behavior

in police interactions with African Americans. Using

data from an original, scientific survey of drivers in the

Kansas City metropolitan area, the authors show that

racial disparities in police stops are concentrated in

what they call the investigatory stop. According to the

James D. War d

Rutgers University-Newark

Charles E. Menifield

University of Missouri-Columbia