What Happened to Civil Rights Era Police Reform?

• In Event: The Political Economy of Local Governments and Police Departments and Unions

Abstract

During the civil rights movement Black Americans demanded better protection from crime, unconstitutional policing, and police abuse. They faced both political and technical obstacles. Politically, how to convince political elites to support racial equality in law enforcement services? Technically, how to change a police department engaged in racial oppression into faithful protectors? The expert consensus at the time was Police Community Relations (PCR) programs (PCR). The technical hurdle introduces a possible source of enduring inequality that previous scholarship on mass incarceration has ignored: experts un-committed to racial equality and so recommending ineffective policies. This paper examines these two steps to provide a picture of the democratic responsiveness of local police and their knowledge production apparatus. First, I assess the responsiveness of police bureaucracies by examining whether PCR adoption is predicted by greater Black political power. Next, I assess whether PCR improved the experience of policing for Black Americans by estimating the effect of PCR units on two measures of policing equality. Together these analyses allow for a comparison of the relative contribution of local political elites and policing experts to the perpetuation of inequality in US policing.

Author

• Andrew James McCall, Columbia University