Race, Politics, and Public Safety: A Panel Study of U.S. Highway Patrol and State Police Strength, 1981-2015

• Autores: Chad A. Malone
• Localización: RIMCIS: Revista Internacional y Multidisciplinar en Ciencias Sociales, ISSN-e 2014-3680, Vol. 7, Nº. 1, 2018 (Ejemplar dedicado a: March), págs. 1-33
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.17583/rimcis.2018.3006
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Raza, Política y Seguridad Pública: Un Estudio de las Patrullas de Autopistas y la Fuerzas Policiales Estatales de los Estados Unidos, 1981-2015
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    Este estudio evalúa los predictores sociales, políticos, económicos, y relativos al tráfico y viajes de las fuerzas policiales de autopistas y estatales en Estados Unidos de 1981 a 2015. Estimaciones, según el modelo de efectos fijos, y basadas en el análisis de 1.635 estado-años, indican que los acercamientos teóricos fundados en la teoría de amenazas raciales, y la política partisana y de género explican en parte la variación en estos números. Los resultados sugieren que los cambios en la densidad de población, la base imponible, el porcentaje de población sin título de bachillerato, el índice de crímenes violentos, y el gasto en prestaciones sociales a nivel estatal, así como las fluctuaciones en los números de la policía local, también influyen las fuerzas de la policía estatal y la organización de patrullas durante este periodo. Sorprendentemente, las fluctuaciones en el número de fatalidades en accidentes de tráfico estatales por millón de millas viajadas, y el número de carnets de conducir por 100.000 habitantes del estado- dos factores relativos al tráfico o viajes que parecen importantes- no tienen ningún impacto en los números de la policía estatal.

  • English

    This study assesses the social, political, economic, and traffic-/travel-related predictors of sworn highway patrol and state police strength in the United States between 1981 and 2015. Fixed-effects estimates based on analyses of 1,635 state-years indicate that theoretical accounts centered on racial threat theory, partisan politics, and gendered politics in part explain variation in this outcome. Findings suggest that changes in population density, the tax base, the percentage of the population without a high school degree, violent crime rates, and spending on social welfare at the state level, as well as shifts in local law enforcement strength, also influence state police and patrol organization strength over this period. Surprisingly, fluctuations in the number of state traffic fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled and the number of driver’s licenses per 100,000 state population—two seemingly important traffic-/travel-related factors—have no impact on the rate of state police and patrol officers per 100,000 population. 

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Beckett, K. (1997). Making crime pay. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Beckett, K., & Western, B. (2001). Governing social marginality, welfare, incarceration, and the transformation of state policy. Punishment...
  • Bechtel, H.K. (1995). State Police in the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
  • Benson, B., Kim, I., Rasmussen, D., & Zuehlke, T. (1992). Is property crime caused by drug use or by drug enforcement policy? Applied...
  • Blumer, H. (1958). Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review, 1(1), 3-7. doi: 10.2307/1388607
  • Bobo, L., & Hutchings, V. (1996). Perceptions of racial group competition. American Sociological Review, 61(6), 951-972. doi: 10.2307/2096302
  • Brandl, S., Chamlin, M., & Frank, J. (1995). Aggregation bias and the capacity for formal crime control. Justice Quarterly, 12(3), 543-562....
  • Braver, E. (2003). Race, hispanic origin, and socioeconomic status in relation to motor vehicle occupant death rates and risk factors among...
  • Caiazza, A. (2004). Does women’s representation in elected office lead to women-friendly policy? Women and Politics, 26(1), 35-70. doi: 10.1300/J014v26n01_03
  • Carmichael, J., & Kent, S. (2014). The persistent significance of racial and economic inequality on the size of municipal police forces...
  • Clark, D., & Cushing, B. (1999). Predicting regional variations in mortality from motor vehicle crashes. Academic Emergency Medicine,...
  • Coate, D., & Schwester, R. (2009). Use of state police services for local policing. Public Budgeting & Finance, 29(3), 97-109. doi:...
  • Cordner, G. (2011). The architecture of US policing. Police Practice and Research, 12(2), 107-119. doi: 10.1080/15614263.2010.512135
  • Cordner, G., Seifert, M., & Ursino, B. (2014). State police and community policing. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing...
  • Correia, M., Reisig, M., & Lovrich, N. (1996). Public perceptions of state police. Journal of Criminal Justice, 24(1), 17-28. doi: 10.1016/0047-2352(95)00049-6
  • Cox, J. (1970). An information/decision theory approach to the allocation of resources (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Arizona State...
  • Cubbin, C., LeClere, F., & Smith, G. (2000). Socioeconomic status and the occurrence of fatal and nonfatal injury in the United States....
  • Davey, J. (1998). Politics of prison expansion. Westport, CT: Praeger.
  • DeAngelo, G., & Hansen, B. (2014). Life and death in the fast lane. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6(2), 231-257. doi: 10.1257/pol.6.2.231
  • Evans, W., & Graham, J. (1988). Traffic safety and the business cycle. Alcohol, Drugs, and Driving, 4(1), 31-38.
  • Frank, M. (2014). A new state-level panel of annual inequality measures over the period 1916-2005. Journal of Business Strategies, 31(1),...
  • Foster, C., & Cordner, G. (2005). The impact of terrorism on state law enforcement. Richmond, KY: Council of State Governments.
  • Giles, M., & Buckner, M. (1993). David Duke and black threat. Journal of Politics, 55(3), 702-713. doi: 10.2307/2131995
  • Giles, M., & Hertz, K. (1994). Racial threat and partisan identification. American Political Science Review, 88(2), 317-326. doi: 10.2307/2944706
  • Greenberg, D. Kessler, R., & Loftin, C. (1985). Social inequality and crime control. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 76(3), 684-704....
  • Harris, D. (1999). The stories, the statistics, and the law: Why ‘driving while black’ matters. Minnesota Law Review, 84(2), 265-326.
  • Hausman, J. (1978). Specification tests in econometrics. Econometrica, 46(6), 1251-1271. doi: 10.2307/1913827
  • Heidbreder, B., & Scheurer, K. (2013). Gender and the gubernatorial agenda. State & Local Government Review, 45(1), 3-13. doi: 10.1177/0160323X12463945
  • Holmes, M. Smith, B., Freng, A., & Munoz, E. (2008). Minority threat, crime control, and police resource allocation in the southwestern...
  • Houston, D., Richardson, L., & Neeley, G. (1995). Legislating traffic safety. Social Science Quarterly, 76(2), 328-345.
  • Jacobs, D. (1979). Inequality and police strength: Conflict theory and coercive control in metropolitan areas. American Sociological Review,...
  • Jacobs, D., & Carmichael, J. (2002). The political sociology of the death penalty. American Sociological Review, 67(1), 109-131. doi:...
  • Jacobs, D., Malone, C., & Iles, G. (2012). Race and imprisonments: Violence, minority threat, and racial politics. The Sociological Quarterly,...
  • Kathlene, L. (1995). Alternative views of crime: Legislative policymaking in gendered terms. Journal of Politics, 57(3), 696-723. doi: 10.2307/2960189
  • Kent, S., & Jacobs, D. (2005). Minority threat and police strength from 1980 to 2000. Criminology, 43(3), 731-760. doi: 10.1111/j.0011-1348.2005.00022.x
  • King, R. (2007). The context of minority group threat: Race, institutions, and complying with hate crime law. Law & Society Review, 41(1),...
  • Kleiman, M. (1988). Crackdowns: The effects of intensive enforcement on retail heroin dealing. In M. Chaiken (Ed.), Street-Level Drug Enforcement...
  • Lee, S., Franz, L., & Wynne, A.J. (1979). Optimizing state patrol Manpower allocation. The Journal of the Operational Research Society,...
  • Leigh, J., & Waldon, H. (1991). Unemployment and highway fatalities. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 16(1), 135-156. doi:...
  • Levitt, S. (1997). Using electoral cycles in police hiring to estimate the effect of police on crime. American Economic Review, 87(3), 270-290....
  • Lizotte, A., Mercy, J., & Monkkonen, E. (1982). Crime and police strength in an urban setting: Chicago. In J. Hagan (Ed.), Quantitative...
  • Malone, C. (in press). Beyond the Federal Drug War: A Panel Study of State-Level Powder and Crack Cocaine Laws, 1977-2010. Sociological Spectrum....
  • Marvell, T., & Moody, C. (1996). Specification problems, police levels, and crime rates. Criminology, 34(4), 609-646. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1996.tb01221.x
  • McCarty, W., Ren, L., & Zhao, J. (2012). Determinants of police strength in large U.S. cities during the 1990s. Crime and Delinquency,...
  • Mundlak, Y. (1978). On the pooling of time-series and cross section data. Econometrica, 46(1), 69-85.
  • Nalla, M., Lynch, M., & Leiber, M. (1997). Determinants of police growth in Phoenix. Justice Quarterly, 14(1), 115-143. doi: 10.1080/07418829700093241
  • Paxton, P., & Hughes, M. (2014). Women, politics, and power. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Reaves, B. (2011). Census of state and local law enforcement agencies, 2008. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.
  • Reiss, A. (1992). Police organization in the twentieth century. Crime and Justice 15, 51-97. doi: 10.1086/449193
  • Scheingold, S. (2010). Politics of Law and Order. New Orleans, LA: Quid Pro Books.
  • Sever, B. (2001). The relationship between minority populations and pólice force strength. Police Quarterly, 4(1), 28-68. doi: 10.1177/109861101129197743
  • Smith, K. (2004). The politics of punishment. Journal of Politics, 66(3), 925-938. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2508.2004.00283.x
  • Stucky, T. (2005). Local politics and police strength. Justice Quarterly, 22(2), 139-169. doi: 10.1080/07418820500088739
  • Stucky, T., Heimer, K., & Lang, J. (2007). A bigger piece of the pie? State corrections spending and the politics of social order. Journal...
  • Taylor, B., Moore, L. Clayton, E., Davis, K., & Rakes, T. (1985). An integer nonlinear goal programming model for the deployment of state...
  • Thomas, S. (1991). The impact of women on state legislative policies. Journal of Politics, 53(4), 958-976. doi: 10.2307/2131862
  • Thomas, S., & Welch, S. (1991). The impact of gender on activities and priorities of state legislators. Political Quarterly, 44(2), 445-456....
  • Weber, M. (1946). From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. (H. Gerth & C.W. Mills, Trans. & Eds.). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Western, B. (2006). Punishment and inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage.
  • Yates, J. & Fording, R. (2005). Politics and state punitiveness in black and white. Journal of Politics, 67(4), 1099-1121. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2508.2005.00352.x