The findings show that police exert more effort when victims are White. They arrive faster at the scene of the crime and exert more follow-up effort after the crime has occurred; however, after arriving at the crime scene, they do not exert more or less effort while they have proximate contact with the victims, whether they are White or Black. These findings suggest that police discriminatory decisions are made when they are away from the crime scene, either before they arrive or after they leave the scene. Once they arrive at the crime scene, however, they systematically perform routine duties regardless of the victim's race. There are often standardized procedures that police must follow upon arrival at a crime scene. Discretionary decisionmaking regarding their use of time and effort is most likely to occur before they arrive at or after they leave the crime scene. These police response patterns held even after controlling for other factors such as poverty, weapon use, injury to the victim, and location. This suggests that to the extent that the police lack accountability for their actions, the manifestation of bias is most likely to occur. Only those victimizations reported to the police were examined. For each of these cases, the dependent variables measured were police response time, the extent of police effort at the crime scene, subsequent police action after procedures at the crime scene, and overall police effort. Independent variables were the victim's race, the offender's race, victim-offender relationship, poverty, injury, weapon, and location. 3 tables and 34 references