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11 Race & Just. 3 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/rcjstc11 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Race and justice 2021, Vol. 11(1) 3-27 The Role of Police Officer © The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: Race/Ethnicity on Crime DOI: 10'77/25'3-perm'ss'ons DOI: 10.1177/2153368718777278 Rates in Immigrant journalssagepub com/home/rai Communities *SAGE Joselyne L. Chenane' and Emily M. Wright2 Abstract Few studies have examined the role of city police officer racial/ethnic repre- sentation on violent crime in immigrant neighborhoods. Yet police officer race/ ethnicity might play a significant role in bolstering or weakening the relationship between immigration and violent crime rates. Researchers have posited that increasing the representation of minority officer would be an important avenue for making police departments more accountable to the communities they serve. The current study contributes to existing research by using national (i.e., 89 cities and 8,980 neighborhoods) data on violent crime from large U.S. cities. We examine the relationship between immigration, violent crime rates, and minority police officer representation using multilevel modeling techniques. Results indi- cate that neighborhood immigrant concentration is associated with lower rob- bery and homicide rates. Moreover, the negative relationship between immigrant concentration and violent crime rates is strengthened by city African American and Hispanic officer representation. Policy implications for law enforcement are discussed. Keywords immigration, immigrant concentration, police representation, violent crimes, neighborhoods ' School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, USA 2School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE, USA Corresponding Author: Joselyne L. Chenane, School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, 113 Wilder Street, HSSB 4th Floor, Lowell, MA 01854, USA. Email: joselynechenane@uml.edu