NCJ Number
86785
Journal
Sociological Focus Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Dated: (October 1982) Pages: 327-346
Date Published
1982
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Recent studies, in finding that community variables such as percentage black and income inequality have significant effects on police size and expenditures, call into question the findings of earlier research.
Abstract
However, these recent studies are themselves subject to serious methodological limitations and leave open the question of whether it is class or racial conflict which affects the deployment of police resources. In this study we estimate several simultaneous equation models of police size per capita in 1971 for 88 non-Southern cities. Each of these models holds constant the effects of per capita police size in 1960. Racial composition and racial inequality are found to be the only significant predictors of the growth in the number of police per capita. (Publisher abstract)