First Advisor

Christopher Shortell

Term of Graduation

Summer 2026

Date of Publication

8-18-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Public Affairs and Policy

Department

Public Affairs and Policy

Language

English

Subjects

Police union, Police violence, race, Racialized organization, Seattle Police Department

Physical Description

1 online resource (vii, 168 pages)

Abstract

In the late 1960s, police began to unionize. Today, they are the most well-organized labor force in the United States, with 70% to 80% of sworn officers now represented by a union. Though it has been decades, little scholarship has developed about how police unions affect policing. Much of the research that does exist uses race-neutral frames to address an organization steeped in racial history. This study aims to address this gap in scholarship, in part, by introducing race as a motivation for and explanation of organizational output.

This research applies Victor Ray's racialized organizations theory to police unions. I have applied his theory in aid of analyzing a racialized organization, specifically one undergoing sustained pressure to reform. In so doing, I have devised three hypotheses of what may be expected to occur when a police union is exposed to prolonged efforts, by outsiders, at police reform. These are (1) backlash or non-compliance, (2) racialized decoupling or performative compliance and (3) racial innovation.

My case study focuses on the Seattle Police Department as it worked through a federal consent decree and local police accountability legislation. Using flexible pattern matching analysis, I've applied my operationalization of Ray's theory to the Seattle Police Officers' Guild's behavior at that time. The results show that, in this case, the union performed all three of the expected actions, in sequence. These findings suggest a new way to evaluate failures of police reform. It also supports the idea that race-neutral frames cannot provide a thorough explanation of police or police union behavior.

Rights

© 2026 Sarahfina Aubrey Peterson

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/45117

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