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United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2008). Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS): 2000 Sample Survey of Law Enforcement Agencies. Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [Distributor].
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03565.v2

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Are Black Officers Underrepresented in Police Departments across the United States?

  AUTHORS: Meher Fatima Khan, Zoya Khursheed Nisar, Alison Sue Weidner Penner, Paul Martin Sommers

  KEYWORDS: Police, Black Officers, Workforce Diversity

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Social Sciences, Vol.14 No.6, June 24, 2026

  ABSTRACT: The authors examine to what extent police diversity among Blacks has changed over time relative to their state’s Black constituency across all states in the U.S. between 2000 and 2020. Using data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) surveys in 2000 and 2020 together with Census estimates of each state’s Black population both years, the authors compare the ratio of the percentage of Black police officers to the percentage of Blacks in each state. Although Black police officer representation relative to Blacks’ overall share of their state’s population has increased in most states over the 20-year period, this ratio was less than 1.0 in 14 states in both years. The most severe underrepresentation of Black police officers relative to their Black populations was in the states of Virginia and both Carolinas.