Racial bias in case processing: does victim race affect police clearance of violent crime incidents

Citation

Lytle, D. (2010), "Racial bias in case processing: does victim race affect police clearance of violent crime incidents", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 33 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/pijpsm.2010.18133aae.004

Racial bias in case processing: does victim race affect police clearance of violent crime incidents

Racial bias in case processing: does victim race affect police clearance of violent crime incidents?

Article Type: Perspectives on policing From: Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Volume 33, Issue 1

T. Taylor, D. Holleran and V. TopalliJustice QuarterlyVol. 26 No. 32009pp. 562-91

Taylor et al. (2009) examined the influence of race in case processing. Specifically, the authors sought to study the influence of both the race of the victim and the race of the offender on police clearance rates. This study uses work by Tyler as a theoretical framework to examine issues of procedural justice.

The present study used 2002 data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS collected data from law enforcement agencies in 23 states. The authors used logistic regression as their primary analytical technique. The dependent variable for this study is case clearance, which was coded as 1 for case cleared and 0 for case not cleared. The independent variables for this study included victim race, offender race, offense type, victim age, and offender age, victim-offender relationship, type of injury, type of weapon, and region.

Taylor and colleagues found that cases involving African-American offenders and white victims had the lowest clearance rates. Cases involving white offenders and white victims had the highest clearance rates. These findings were consistent across all crime types. The authors also found that victim characteristics had little influence over the likelihood that a case would be cleared. Offender characteristics exhibited some influence. Cases involving African-American offenders were approximately 4 percent less likely to be cleared. Incidents involving male offenders were approximately 5 percent less likely to be cleared. Taylor et al. (2009) found that offense type and region were some of the strongest predictors of case clearance. Specifically, they found that aggravated assaults were the most likely to be cleared, the authors concluded that this finding was the result of close victim-offender relationships in aggravated assault cases. Also, they found that cases in the South were less likely to be cleared. Agencies in the Northeast were 20 percent more likely to clear cases than agencies in the South.

Daniel LytleUniversity of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA