Abstract

For decades, scholars have called for and investigated the effects of representative bureaucracy, with some scholars explaining that common lived experiences, or “subject positions” between street-level bureaucrats and community members might facilitate better communication that in turn could lead to consensus or shared meaning in discourse and behavior between these two groups. Building upon the theoretical scaffolding of the Target Model of discretion, our study uses self-reported survey data from 190 sworn officers in a large majority minority city in the southern United States to investigate the relationship between officer race and the priority Black and non-Black officers ascribe to community norms and expectations as influences on their decision-making processes. Our findings indicate that Black police officers in this city are significantly more likely than their non-Black counterparts to recognize community norms as a factor that influences their decisions, in line with the research hypothesis.

摘要

几十年来，学者们一直在呼吁并调查代议制官僚制的影响，一些学者解释说，街头官僚与社区成员之间的共同生活经历或“主体立场”可能有助于更好的沟通，进而可能导致共识或共享这两个群体之间的话语和行为的意义。基于自由裁量目标模型的理论框架，我们的研究使用来自美国南部一个占多数的少数族裔城市的 190 名宣誓官的自我报告调查数据来调查军官种族与优先考虑的黑人和非黑人之间的关系官员将社区规范和期望视为对其决策过程的影响。