The Effect of Court-Ordered Hiring Quotas on the Composition and Quality of Police

Justin McCrary

No 12368, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Arguably the most aggressive affirmative action program ever implemented in the United States was a series of court-ordered racial hiring quotas imposed on municipal police departments. My best estimate of the effect of court-ordered affirmative action on workforce composition is a 14 percentage point gain in the fraction African American among newly hired officers. Evidence on police performance is mixed. Despite substantial black-white test score differences on police department entrance examinations, city crime rates appear unaffected by litigation. However, litigation lowers slightly both arrests per crime and the fraction black among serious arrestees.

JEL-codes: H4 H7 J1 J4 J7 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-pbe, nep-reg and nep-ure
Note: LS PE
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Published as McCrary, Justin. "The Effect of Court-Ordered Hiring Quotas on the Composition and Quality of Police." American Economic Review 97, 1 (2008): 318-353.

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