The five neighborhoods were selected for their unique compositions. The neighborhoods consisted primarily of upper-middle-class black professionals, low-income blacks, 1969 Cuban entrants, 1980 Cuban entrants, and white middle-class citizens. A member of each of 50 households was interviewed in each neighborhood. For the officer sample, officers who had attended quarterly training over a 2-week period were sampled (about one-sixth of the force) to yield a sample of 295 officers. In rating police attributes and tasks, the middle-class black neighborhood ranked discretion, courtesy, and ability to get along as most important, and the low-income blacks rated appearance and judgment as most important. Residents of the two Cuban neighborhoods and the white middle-class neighborhood ranked knowledge, using judgment, and discretion as the most important evaluation criteria. Police ranked judgment, initiative, dependability, discretion, and the ability to get along as the most important evaluation criteria. This shows a preference for evaluations on the basis of service and reasonableness rather than empirical performance measures. The study distinguishes police preference for evaluation criteria according to officer ethnicity. Implications are drawn for police training and performance evaluation. 10 tables and 13 references.