Findings
The Racial Characteristics of Officers and Citizens
Examining the 130 relatively detailed cases of encounters reported as police brutality in these major newspapers, we found that the overwhelming majority of the civilian victims of police brutality were African-American. Interestingly, 113 of the victims (86.9 percent) were African American, 13 (10.0 percent) were Latino, and only 5 (3.5 percent) of the victims were non-Latino whites. Additionally, three of the five white victims were in the company of a black person at the time of the police encounter.
In contrast to the citizen data, the data on the officers involved showed a different racial background: 92.8 percent (N=104) were white, 2.7 percent (N=3) were of Latino origin, and 4.4 percent (N=5) of the officers were black (See Table 1). The racial makeup of the officers involved in violent assaults is whiter than the racial composition of larger city police departments. For example, in the city of Chicago, blacks represent 23 percent of the force (Jackson et al., 1991), while in New York City only 8 percent of the officers are black (Mydans et al., 1991). Overall, the Justice Department reports that whites constitute 85 percent of police officers, while blacks and Latinos account for 9 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
As we have noted, police departments were developed to control the poor and "dangerous classes" of urban society (Jacobs, 1979), and selective enforcement of the law by white police officers has been found to be common, with blacks and other minorities bearing a greater number of formal sanctions than whites. The cases reviewed in this analysis lend support to this contention. Almost 97 percent of the victims of police misconduct were minorities, and the vast majority (86.9 percent) of the victims were African American. Furthermore, in three of the five cases in which the victims were white, a black individual was also present. All but one of the altercations that resulted in death involved minority citizens, with black males accounting for the majority of the deaths.
It is significant that there is not a single case of white citizens being targeted for excessive force by black or Latino officers. In the cases involving Latino victims, the officers involved were either white or Latino. There were no cases of brutality involving a Latino victim and a black officer. In the two cases involving allegations of misconduct against Latino officers, the victims were either black or Latino. And in the cases in which the actions of a black police officer came under scrutiny, the victims were in all cases black citizens.
Table 1. Racial Classification of Officers and Victims
The data seem to suggest the existence of a hierarchy of racial or ethnic groups, what Feagin (1989) calls the "ladder of racial dominance." Some groups are positioned higher than others on the ladder, which results in greater power and privileges than lower groups. White citizens were rarely victims of abuse, and if they were, it was at the hands of white officers. Minority officers did not cross the line and assault those of a higher social position. In addition, white officers targeted minority group members for harsh treatment. Latinos seemed to be positioned below whites, but above blacks, in this hierarchy of force. While the low number of cases involving Latino officers suggests caution here, they show that Latino officers seemed to target members of their own group or blacks. These findings are consistent with Carter (1986) who found that Latino officers were more likely to discriminate against Latino citizens than white citizens. In the cases reviewed for this analysis, whites were not targeted by the Latino officers. Black officers were involved in brutality cases only with members of their racial group. There were no cases in which a black officer was involved in an altercation involving a white or Latino victim. Blacks seemed to occupy the lowest position on the ladder of dominance.