Racial Diversity in Policing: Do We Need More Asian American Police Officers in Response to the #StopAsianHate Movement?

Abstract

The rising nationwide concerns about violence targeting Asians have highlighted the scant research on Asian American police officers. This article aims to (re)introduce this important dialogue and calls for a commitment from other race and social equity scholars to extend the discourse on racial diversity in policing. Using data on race and ethnicity compiled by the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey, this article compares data from the largest 100 cities ranked by their respective Asian population percentage with the percentage of Asian police officers from those same cities to examine Asian diversity in policing. Analysis reveals that all the cities with the exception of five were underrepresented by Asian police officers, and that more work needs to be done by these police departments if they hope to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.