The Study of Racism and Policing in the United States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6232879 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Spencer Piston (0000-0001-9933-8295, 1Department of Political Science, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; email: [email protected]), Kaneesha R Johnson (2Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA), Selma Hedlund (0009-0000-3061-7229, 3Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA), Clive Walker (0000-0002-5244-0353, Boston University), Chas Walker (1Department of Political Science, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; email: [email protected]) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 499-519 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annual Review of Political Science (BOOK_SERIES) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1094-2939 • E-ISSN: 1545-1577 |
| Publisher | Annual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1146/annurev-polisci-033123-124752 |
| OpenAlex | W4409785998 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 52 |
We begin this article by discussing two moments, in the late 1800s and late 1900s, in which the racist views of influential political scientists fundamentally shaped research on policing. In contrast, today's scholarship, breaking sharply with research of the past, does not attempt to justify racist policing but to study it. The dominant approach today follows a racial disparities framework, which maps out the uneven allocation of police harms. As we discuss, these studies have made valuable contributions to the field and to real-world efforts to resist the damage done by police. At the same time, however, the racial disparities framework has limitations that make it difficult for scholars to understand racist police oppression. We conclude by arguing that, to take the next step forward, future scholarship should follow the lead of and expand upon work that centers the voices of the highly policed
Criminology · Political science · Racism · Sociology · State (computer science · Computer Science · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions
Layers of Bias
The role of officer race and gender in police-civilian interactions in Chicago
A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy
Citizenship and Social Policy
The Mass Criminalization of Black Americans
Fiscal Pressures and Discriminatory Policing
Withdrawing and Drawing In
No Justice, No Peace
Race, power, and knowledge
Targeting young men of color for search and arrest during traffic stops
Better for everyone
Revisiting the Theory of Broken Windows Policing
Racial Innocence
What’s violence got to do with it? Inequality, punishment, and state failure in US politics
Insurgent citizens
Bringing abolition in
Explaining the American crisis of policing
Do White Law Enforcement Officers Target Minority Suspects
The Foundational Lawlessness of the Law Itself
Predatory Policing, Intersectional Subjection, and the Experiences of LGBTQ People of Color in New Orleans
The State from Below
Do Officer-Involved Shootings Reduce Citizen Contact with Government
Are Police Racially Biased in the Decision to Shoot
Lethal Force in Black and White
What Makes a Concept Good? A Criterial Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences
Fines, Fees, Forfeitures, and Disparities
Taxing the Poor
Seeing Blue in Black and White
The Politics of Racist Dehumanization in the United States
Metrics Management and Bureaucratic Accountability
Prime Suspects
Police Are Our Government
Too Much Knowledge, Too Little Power
Protesting While Black
Ticketing and Turnout
Where Did All the White Criminals Go
Complaint-Oriented Policing
The Ideal of the American Commonwealth
Next-Generation Policing Research
The Reassociation of Ideas and Purposes
Administrative Records Mask Racially Biased Policing
The Opinion-Mobilizing Effect of Social Protest against Police Violence
The Whiteness of Police
Crime, race, and values
Race Making in a Penal Institution
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |