Policing Socio-Geographic Boundaries and Inequality
By Allison Verrilli, UT Austin College of Liberal Arts, Marcel Roman, Harvard University, Hannah Walker, University of Texas at Austin, Derek Epp, University of Texas at Austin, Amy Liu, University of Texas at Austin, and Mike Findley, University of Texas at Austin
How do patterns of racial inequality shape policing behavior in the United States? We investigate whether police engage in boundary maintenance at geographic points of racial difference. Critical race scholars suggest that police explicitly serve this function. Yet empirical studies are rare and limited to snapshots of a single city, making it hard to distinguish practices employed across departments from agency- and officer-level idiosyncrasies. We leverage high resolution data on police activity in seven U.S. cities to evaluate how police engage with racial boundaries. We find evidence that police activity is elevated in racial boundary zones relative to non-boundary zones, exceeds observed crime, and that racialized outcomes are as much a product of policing practices as they are of conflict between private citizens. We reorient the study of boundaries around top-down processes that lead to their regulation and identify an agenda for future research.
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