Does Gender Matter? Using Social Equity, Diversity, and Bureaucratic Representation to Examine Police–Pedestrian Encounters in Seattle, Washington

Abstract

This article considers the extent to which the gender of police officers affects the likelihood that a pedestrian will be frisked following a Terry stop. Theories of social equity, organizational diversity, and representative bureaucracy are used to develop several testable hypotheses. Results suggest that the presence of female police officers correlate with lower levels of racial and ethnic disparity in the distribution of frisks conducted by police in the City of Seattle. Further, our analysis suggests that stops initiated by female reporting officers reduce male–female disparities on the probability of being frisked. Results are discussed in terms of both theory and practice.