Community Policing and the Arrest Rate Disparity

Actions for 'Community Policing and the Arrest Rate Disparity'

In 2013, the Brookings Institute released a study which said, in summary, that:

• Crime rates have steadily declined over the past twenty-five years.
•  Low-income individuals are more likely than higher-income individuals to be victims of crime.
•  The majority of criminal offenders are younger than age thirty.
•  Disadvantaged youths engage in riskier criminal behavior.

So consider this...statistically, black men are arrested and incarcerated at a much higher rate than any other demographic. But statistics also show that black men commit crimes at a higher rate than any other demographic. The underlying social and political issues behind this are numerous and far-reaching. Some would argue that a larger percentage of the black community lives in urban areas and below the poverty line so they are more exposed to and prone to criminal behavior. Others would argue that criminal acts are still an individual choice and the police must patrol where the higher crime rates are, not just patrol all neighborhoods equally. Indeed, both parties are right and both parties' arguments have flaws.

Solutions to this are complex. Police chiefs have limited resources. In theory, they could send their officers evenly to all neighborhoods just to even the number of arrests, but that obviously leaves the higher-crime areas with less police - resulting in higher crime rates in the poorer neighborhoods. It's a lose-lose for the police chief trying to balance the arrest disparity with the demand to target higher crime areas...or is it? Put yourself in the police chief's shoes...how do you balance these competing issues?