Arrests, racial discrimination and intergroup relations

This article examines the extent to which arrest decisions in Montreal (199 1-1993) are significantly influenced by the racial status of defendants and victims or by the racial composition of neighborhoods in which offending o ccurs. Findings show that arrest outcomes for violent offenders are not aff ected by the ethnic status of either defendants or victims. On the other ha nd, the severity of arrest dispositions does vary across the urban landscap e; specifically, it increases as the neighborhood residential concentration of black communities increases. This mark-up in the severity of arrest dis positions, however; affects both black and white defendants. Simply assumin g that a significant proportion of policemen are "biased" against black def endants does not account for the fact that arrest outcomes are exactly the same for both the minority of black and the majority of white defendants li ving in these mixed or heterogeneous neighborhoods. An alternative view-poi nt could be that police officers expect or have learned to expect that pers onal crimes or conflicts are more likely, in such neighborhoods, to produce local disturbances.