Minority Police Officers

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the social identity theory (SIT) relates that minorities often feel the effects of low social status and popular bias, but they also can use their own group solidarity to raise their level of group self-esteem. The author points out that minority police officers are members of two major distinct, yet interactive groups: The police, based on the occupation pursued by the group's members, and their own minority group, derived from the racial, ethnic, and cultural characteristics of the group's members, as they are perceived by the majority group. The paper states that generally, in many countries in recent years, there has been a decline in the public's estimation of the police, a group once held in high regard, because of rising crime rates. It points out, however, that an Asian or Black police officer, more at home in his own community, can work more smoothly with that community's residents than majority officers can.

From the Paper:

"The juxtaposition of both real-life and fictional examples of the operation of prejudice against minority police officers is quite telling, for it shows that while actually incidents do exist, it is also taken as axiomatic that such situations must exist in order for such fictional dramas to have the ring of fact. From just such examples, it must be concluded that, in this case, both the majority and the minority, hold similar views."

More papers on Minority Police Officers:

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