Black or Blue: Racial Profiling and Representative Bureaucracy

Are there conditions under which minority bureaucrats will be less likely to provide active representation? We address this question by testing the link between passive and active representation for race in a police department and in the particular instance of racial profiling. We bring together literature from three areas: racial profiling, representative bureaucracy, and police socialization. Our findings support the hypothesis that organizational socialization can hinder the link between passive and active representation. Furthermore, we found that the presence of black police officers is related to an increase in racial disparity in the division. This finding was unexpected and raises several important questions most of which require individual level data to address. Black or Blue: Racial Profiling and Representative Bureaucracy Previous research has established a clear link between passive and active representation for race. Numerous studies (Hindera 1993, Meier et al. 1989, Meier and Stewart 1992, Selden 1997) have concluded that minority bureaucrats implement policies or use their discretion to reduce the disparate treatment minority clients have historicall