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13 J. Ethnicity Crim. Just. 1 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/wecj13 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal ofEthnicity in CriminalJustice, 13:1-15, 2015 Routledge Copyright 0 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Taylor& Francis Group ISSN: 1537-7938 print / 1537-7946 online DOI: 10.1080/15377938.2014.893220 Measuring Diversity in Police Agencies SALOMON ALCOCER GUAJARDO Department of Public Management, The City University of New York, New York, New York, USA Despite numerous studies on minority and female integration into police agencies, the use ofdiversity indices to benchmark and assess changes in the ethnic and racial composition of police workforces has been limited. This study applies the Simpson, McIntosh, and measure of variation indices to data on the New York City Police Department's police and civilian workforces to obtain workforce di- versity measurements. Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses show that the 3 indices produce diversity measurements that are consistent with one another. Although the indices produce similar scores, the Simpson index is more efficient at measuring diversity and less sensitive to the number of ethnic or racial categories used by the New York City Police Department in comparison to the McIn- tosh and measure of variation indices. KEYTERMS Minority integration, measure of variation (MV) index, McIntosh index, Simpson index, workforce diversity Numerous studies have assessed the integration of minority men and women into police agencies (e.g., Harrington & Lonsway, 2004; Hochstedler, Regoli, & Poole, 1984; Martin, 2004; McCluskey & McCluskey, 2004; Schulz, 2004; Stokes & Scott, 1996; Walker, 1983, 1989; Winters, 1991). These studies show that police agencies have increased the number of minority officers within their structures over time. These studies, however, have not assessed the overall level of ethnic or racial diversity that existed in the police agencies prior to the integration of minority officers. The studies have also not as- sessed whether the level of diversity within police agencies has increased significantly from prior years as a result of hiring minority officers. As a Submitted March 2013; resubmitted May 2013; accepted July 2013. Address correspondence to Salomon Alcocer Guajardo, Department of Public Manage- ment, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 445 West 59th Street, Room 3536, New York, NY 10019. E-mail: sguajardo@jjay.cuny.edu 1