Predicting Bad Policing: Theorizing Burdensome and Racially Disparate Policing through the Lenses of Social Psychology and Routine Activities

Despite an increase in research relating to racial disparities in policing—particularly in the area of deadly force—there have been comparatively few attempts to theorize which factors predict disparate policing. We fill this gap by combining routine activity theory from criminology with situationist approaches to discrimination from social psychology. We propose that disparate policing is most likely to occur when officers who are vulnerable to situational risk factors for bias encounter citizens who are members of vulnerable out-groups. We argue that situational risk factors for bias and aggression among police provoke feelings of threat and motivate self-protection and/or feelings of disgust and out-group derogation. We present social psychological laboratory research and, where available, field research specific to policing as a way of exploring and bolstering the proposed framework. This work supports an agenda for future scientific research that may assist practitioners in identifying likely opportunities for reform even as we await further field research that tests these hypothesized parameters.