Patterns of disciplinary action against white and black officers in the Cincinnati Police Department provide inconclusive evidence of race-based disparities in discipline, according to a report by the Cincinnati Police Department.

        Nevertheless, City Manager Valerie Lemmie said she would move forward with plans to hire an outside consultant to study the question — if only to address the perception of disparate treatment. And she said she would expand the inquiry to include all city departments.

        While the statistics show that minority officers are punished more often — and more severely — than their white counterparts, Ms. Lemmie said there's still no evidence that racial bias is the root cause of those differences.

        In fact, some of the report's findings would suggest just the opposite:

        Minority supervisors recommended discipline more often than their white male counterparts. On average, white male supervisors made up 69.5 percent of the supervisory ranks during the two-year period. But they instituted 62.8 percent of discipline cases in 1999-2000, and 65.5 percent in 2000-2001.

        On the most routine disciplinary actions — those involving a failure to appear for a court appearance or a duty-related auto accident — African-American officers accounted for 45 percent of the discipline, yet constitute 29 percent of the force. The report noted that punishments for these offenses “allow for little discretion in the application of discipline, and are therefore arguably race/gender neutral.”

        Where disparities remain, they could be explained by tenure on the force, the report says. More than 80 percent of officers disciplined had been on the force less than 10 years. Because of the effects of affirmative action, those officers are also more likely to be African-American than their more seasoned counterparts.

        Still, the bottom-line numbers show a difference in discipline.

        Even after adjusting for tenure and excluding routine cases, black male officers make up 26.4 percent of the force but account for 33.3 percent of discipline cases, the report said.

        Ms. Lemmie cautioned that the numbers are so small that it's hard to say whether the differences in discipline are significant.

        That's why the city will hire an outside consultant, Lawrence Travis of the University of Cincinnati's Center for Criminal Justice Research.

        He's expected to look at discipline on a case-by-case basis to see whether the individual circumstances of each case can explain differences in discipline.

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