Abstract

One longstanding explanation for bias and excessive force in policing is selection—the assertion that those who select to work in law enforcement are more likely to hold far-right, intolerant, and antiegalitarian, views than the public. While intuitive and widely believed, the evidence in support of the selection hypothesis is surprisingly thin. We offer a vital contribution to the literature by exploring selection at one of its earliest phases: late adolescents entering college and the career-formulation stage of life. Utilizing surveys of over 13 million late adolescents collected across 44 y in the United States, we find that those intending a career as a law enforcement officer hold more right-leaning views on race relations, immigration and intercultural relations, women and gender roles, homosexuality and gay rights, drug-use, freedom of speech, and criminal justice, than their peers intending other careers or their modal peer who is undecided with respect to career intentions and serves as a “blank slate” comparison group. Critically, these findings largely hold among Whites and non-Whites but are somewhat attenuated among women. These sources of heterogeneity are noteworthy given evidence suggesting that hiring more non-White officers may ameliorate bias and excessive force in policing and accompanying pushes to diversify police forces. Our findings add caution to such pushes by suggesting that the non-Whites who select into law enforcement may hold views that reproduce, vs. attenuate, existing police bias. In contrast, our findings direct reform efforts toward expanding the ranks of female officers, bias testing, and training during police recruitment.

Keywords: policing | public opinion | political attitudes | criminal justice | political psychology

T.T. Reny,M.F. Roman,B.J. Newman, & D.O. Sears,  Late adolescents entering college intending a career as police officers hold more right-leaning views than their peers, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (32) e2500220122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2500220122 (2025).