Representing Personal and Professional Identities in Policing: Sources of Strength and Conflict

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Andrea M. Headley
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13473

Research Article:

Race and Gender

Symposium

396 Public Administration Review • May | June 2022

Abstract: Representing diverse identities in government is important for equal employment, symbolic benefits, and

opportunities to improve public service outcomes. This article uses qualitative interviews with 32 frontline police

officers to examine the ways in which personal and professional identities intersect to promote or impede those benefits.

The findings highlight how holding similar sociodemographic identities with the public can be a source of strength as

it pertains to promoting shared understanding and reducing the social distance that comes with identity incongruence.

However, internal identity conflicts arise as White officers overcome culture shock and endure learning curves, whereas

officers of color navigate the dual pressures of empathetic treatment (that comes with shared personal identity) versus

arms-length treatment (that comes with professional identification). Even then, as seen in this study, the way officers

treat and interact with the community is imperative and can overcome symbolic identity barriers.

Evidence for Practice

• Personal (nonwork) and professional (work) identities both impact the ways in which bureaucrats perform

their job.

• Relying on shared personal identity in work settings facilitates shared understanding and connection, but can

also lead to identity conflicts.

• Bureaucrats who share identity with community members may face burdens as they navigate between

providing representative, empathetic treatment versus standard, arms-length treatment.

• The behavior and attitudes of bureaucrats can overcome identity barriers.

The bureaucracy is comprised of public service

professionals who hold distinct identities,

some of which “show up” to work and some of

which are invisible or intentionally suppressed (Clair,

Beatty and MacLean2005). Traditional workplace

shifts, such as hiring more “diverse” employees, rest

on the assumption that individual identities matter.

However, more recently, scholars of organizational

behavior and diversity have argued there are benefits

to bringing one’s whole identity or self to work (Cha

and Roberts2019), and that work culture must be

conducive to doing so regardless of the identity in

question (Peterson and O’Connor2019).

In public administration, the theory of representative

bureaucracy argues that bureaucracies should

be representative of the people they serve in

terms of sociodemographic identities as well as

other characteristics (this is referred to as passive

representation). Such representation can have

differing impacts on the public: it may lead to

improved decisions and tangible outcomes for those

groups being represented (i.e., active representation)

and may also result in more positive appraisals and

perceptions by represented groups (i.e., symbolic

representation)—the latter can happen even

without the former behavioral changes (Bradbury

and Kellough2011). The theory of representative

bureaucracy has been empirically assessed in

various policy context and levels of government,

but has demonstrated mixed results for the impact

of representation. In certain contexts, and under

certain conditions, representation leads to enhanced

outcomes, whereas other cases show null effects of

representation or even reverse effects. As such, the

representative bureaucracy literature is ambiguous

with respect to identifying the specific circumstances

that may enhance or hinder the likelihood of

passive representation leading to active or symbolic

representation.

Further, this scholarship is often not in dialogue with

identity research in other fields such as management

studies or psychology. Yet, research on identity in

these fields suggests that individuals can have similar

identities, but those identities may vary in how salient

they are to any one individual and that holding

diverse identities can serve as sources of strength and

Andrea M. Headley

Georgetown University

Representing Personal and Professional Identities in Policing:

Sources of Strength and Conflict

Andrea M. Headley is an assistant

professor in the McCourt School of Public

Policy at Georgetown University. She is

a public management, social equity, and

criminal justice policy scholar.

Email: ah1646@georgetown.edu

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 3, pp. 396–409. © 2022 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13473.