Patterns of interaction in a police patrol bureau: Race and gender barriers to integration

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of race and gender on patterns of interpersonal interaction in a police patrol bureau, and the organizational structural devices and cultural underpinnings that work together to obstruct the integration of women and blacks into the bureau. Analysis and interpretation of qualitative data gathered during field research in one midwestern police department are used to develop the subject. Gender and racial integration failed despite various organizational structural devices to “level the playing field” and carry out integration. No one single structural, political, or individual characteristic or condition appeared to be a decisive cause of the lack of integration. Instead, races and genders were divided by features of organizational life such as tensions, conflicts, and intraorganizational feuding about affirmative action, dual promotion lists, the decision-making process related to job assignments, police leagues in the department, and the presence of women in patrol.