Patterns of Rural-Urban Arrests

• NCJ Number: 81598
• Author(s): M T Zingraff; E M Suval
• Date Published: Unknown
• Length: 21 pages
• Grant Number(s): 00672
• Sponsoring Agency: North Texas State University
• Publication Format: Document
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Findings are presented from an exploratory rural-urban comparison study of probabilities of arrest by sex, age, and race which used North Carolina Uniform Crime Report data for 1975.

Abstract

The research was undertaken to determine whether patterns of disproportionate arrest rates for males, adults, and nonwhites vary with the degree of rurality of an area, as reported in the literature. Current research suggest that males, adults, and nonwhites are disproportionately arrested compared with females, juveniles, and whites. This arrest disparity apparently reflects both differential involvement in crime and the use of police discretion. The study data from North Carolina yielded 295,109 arrests reported by an average of 351 law enforcement agencies. Counties were ranked by degree of rurality according to the criteria of population density, annual growth rate from 1970 to 1975, and the number of medial sources. Arrest probabilities were calculated for sex, age, and race for all counties. The analysis confirmed substantial narrowing of arrest disparity for sex and age as counties became more urbanized. This was not true for race, however. Possible explanations are that (1) the proportion of arrest rates reflecting police discretion does not vary with urbanization; (2) rural police may not encounter nonwhites very often, since they may live in areas peripheral to daily patrols; (3) the lower degree of discrepancy between white and nonwhite persons arrested in rural counties may constitute negligence of duty and discriminatory policing; and (4) differential reward systems in rural and urban police organizations may produce discrepancies in arrest according to race. The findings are not conclusive in showing racial bias in arrest selectivity, but they are suggestive that any such bias transcends professionalization and bureaucratization in police forces. Research techniques are needed for disaggregating the effects of police discretion from those of differential criminal activity. Tabular data and 20 references are provided.