Representative Bureaucracy, Race, and Policing: A Survey Experiment

Employing a theoretical framework of symbolic representation, our study examines whether varying the representation of black police officers in local agencies influences how black and white citizens judge the agency’s performance, trustworthiness, and fairness in terms of civilian complaints of police misconduct. We use an online survey experiment in which we vary the representation of black officers in a hypothetical police department and also vary the agency’s complaints of police misconduct, including stop-and-frisk practices. Results show that perceived performance, trust, and fairness increases among black citizens when the police force is composed of mostly black officers. For white citizens, however, the effect of greater black representation among the police is largely negative. The study further indicates that blacks may be more tolerant of increased police misconduct to the extent blacks are better represented in the police department. This research suggests that the symbolic representativeness of the police does causally influence how citizens view and judge law enforcement agencies.