Effect of suspect race on officers' arrest decisions'

摘要

This article assesses the research on police bias against minorities. Kochel, Wilson, and Mastrofski (2011) identify the effect of race on a police officer's decision to arrest as a critical area of study that has yielded contradictory results. Their goal is twofold. First, to determine, from these mixed results, whether race influences the police's decision to arrest, and then fill a knowledge gap by synthesizing the extant research.rnThe authors conduct a meta-analysis that examines 27 independent data sets for the relationship between race and the likelihood of arrest. This study focuses on the odds of arrest only and not statistical significance of the findings. The data came from research journals (published and unpublished) and government documents.