Social control in the metropolis: A community-level examination of the minority group-threat hypothesis

Research on the minority group-threat hypothesis has often found that the percentages of black and Latino populations at the city level have predicted variations in municipal police resources, net of all measured control variables. To date, no study has linked changes in minority representation within a single city over time at the community level to changes in the allocation of police resources. This study tested the hypothesis in 74 New York City police precincts in 1975, 1982, and 1992. It found that increases in the percentages of Latino populations of precincts have predicted changes in police deployment, and the link between Latino populations and police deployment is nonlinear.