Citation

McElvain JP, Kposowa AJ. J. Criminol. (New York) 2014; 2014: 1-10.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Hindawi Publishing)

DOI

10.1155/2014/726492

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

With an emphasis to examine Latino officers who have been involved in police shootings, this study analyzed twenty-one years (1990-2010) of data from one of the largest law enforcement departments in the United States. The study compared Latino population trends in the United States, the State of California, a southern California County, and focused on the representativeness of Latinos in one southern California law enforcement department. The analysis further investigated police shootings by the race of the officer, narrowing the focus to determine whether an increasing representativeness of Latino officers had any effect on police shootings.

RESULTS revealed that while the percentage of White officers in the department decreased and Latino officers increased, so too did their involvement in police shootings. Most surprisingly, Latino officer-involved shootings outpaced their growth in the department by a factor of 3.3 and in the county by a factor of more than 4.

Language: en