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

Justin McCrary^1,2

¹ Ford Motor Company (United States) · ² University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

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.

DOI

10.1257/000282807780323569

Volume

97 (1)

Pages

318-353

Language

en

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BibTeX

Sources

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