A new study conducted out of Indiana University looking through data from law enforcement agencies in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles found that “Black officers were more likely to have recorded cases of misconduct, despite there being no difference between Black and white officers in the number of allegations made against them.”
The study, entitled “The race discipline gap: A cautionary note on archival measures of behavioral misconduct,” has been available since April, and while the authors wouldn’t say it is proof of racial bias within the law enforcement workplace, they did note that their findings are “in line with what theories of racial bias would predict and with evidence of racial disparities in punishment in other settings.”
Using archival data collected from the “Chicago Police Department from 2001 to 2008 and 2011 to 2015, as well as administrative records from the Philadelphia Police Department from 1991 to 1998,” researchers found that while complaints against Black officers were no higher than their white counterparts, the formal discipline Black officers faced came at a much higher rate. In Chicago, for example, Black officers were disciplined at a 105% higher rate than their white counterparts. In Philadelphia, that rate was 48% higher than white officers.
After controlling for the number of allegations of misconduct, they found that Black officers were disciplined at an even higher rate — 132 percent more often than white officers.
This is not surprising. At all. Racism, and more exactly white supremacy, works in such ways. Whether intentionally or not, discipline, punishment, and expectations for Black people are different in our country. Whether it’s how Black children are disproportionately punished in school versus their white counterparts or who the death penalty is applied to, race is consistently an enormous factor.