Police Diversity - by Tara Lai Quinlan (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Tensions between police and diverse communities in both the US and UK require innovation about ways to improve relations. While police diversity is often discussed as a potential solution, these discussions lack theoretical and empirical support.

This volume presents an original discussion of race, gender, sexual orientation and class diversity and shows that police diversity can have meaningful impacts on the decision-making, outcomes and legitimacy of police forces.

Drawing on theoretical and empirical research including interviews with diverse police leaders, this book examines how police diversity can help shift traditional policing cultures. It also considers obstacles to police reform, revealing how championing meaningful diversity can positively impact the lives of policed communities.

Review Quotes

'Quinlan has provided a vital roadmap for stakeholders seeking to transition away from tokenistic diversity initiatives towards meaningful, structural reform.' Policing and Society

"In this impressive volume, Professor Quinlan combines her formidable expertise on policing with an effective combination of disciplinary approaches and methodologies to thoroughly examine a topic of considerable societal import - the poor demographic representativeness of police populations in the UK and US. Quinlan rightly identifies crucial factors, including culture, leadership, and history, to explain why diversifying policing is so difficult yet so needed." Jack Glaser, University of California, Berkeley

"The demographic makeup of the police compared to the population policed has always been seen as a key factor in the legitimacy and effectiveness of policing. As this vital book discusses, in the recent decades of increasing socioeconomic and cultural conflict, police legitimacy has been in a state of permanent crisis. Closing the gap between the population and police in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexuality and education has been one of the most commonly suggested reforms. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the likelihood that increasing police diversity could significantly enhance their legitimacy in particular by changing traditional police culture. It covers the recent debates and research on this issue comprehensively and lucidly. An impressive scholarly achievement, it will be of great value to police scholars, practitioners and policy makers." Robert Reiner, London School of Economics and Political Science

About the Author

Tara Lai Quinlan is a qualified lawyer and Associate Professor in Law and Criminal Justice at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham.