The Neighborhood Context of Police Behavior

Abstract

A number of researchers have hypothesized that neighborhood context may influence police behavior. Data from sixty neighborhoods located in three large U. S. cities were analyzed using bivariate and multivariate analyses of five measures of police behavior and eleven neighborhood characteristics to test the neighborhood context hypothesis. Police offer more assistance to residents and initiate more contacts with suspicious persons and suspected violators in racially heterogeneous neighborhoods. They are also less likely to stop suspicious persons in high-crime areas. Suspects encountered by police in lower-status neighborhoods run three times the risk of arrest compared with offenders encountered in higher-status neighborhoods, regardless of type of crime, race of offender, offender demeanor, and victim preferences for criminal arrest. Variation in police use of coercive authority among neighborhoods is linked to the racial composition of neighborhoods but is not attributable to the race of individuals confronted by police. Police response to crime victims is also influenced by neighborhood characteristics. Officers appear less likely to file incident reports in higher-crime neighborhoods when other variables are taken into consideration. A threshold effect may operate in which offenses must reach a higher level of seriousness in higher-crime neighborhoods before police report incidents. Neighborhood characteristics and police departmental structure and policies may interact to produce systematic, and therefore predictable, patterns of police behavior.