EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS: DOES DIVERSITY IN POLICE DEPARTMENTS AND COMMUNITIES AFFECT ARREST RATES?

We provide use the representativeness perspective to understand how racial/ethnic diversity within an organization and in its surrounding community can affect treatment of community members. Combining databases on communities, crime rates and police demographics, we show that the proportion of African-American residents arrested was the lowest when racially diverse police forces were located in diverse communities. When only the police force or community was diverse arrest rates were lower than when neither organization or community was diverse. Implications for policy decisions are discussed in light of how the diversity may eventually inspire better relationships between police and community.