Cumulative Dehumanization in Everyday Policing: The Psychological, Affective, and Material Consequences of Discretionary Arrests

Bustamante, Priscilla; Jashnani, Gaurav; Stoudt, Brett G.

doi:10.1111/asap.12187

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 86 publications

(105 reference statements)

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“…Concerns regarding criminal justice practices were rarely mentioned ( n = 1; .04%). This absence is particularly noteworthy given the well-documented racial and economic disparities in treatment by law enforcement and high levels of distrust in the police in communities of color, factors that may discourage marginalized survivors from seeking police intervention (Bustamante, Jashnani, & Stoudt, 2019; Cramer, 2005; Richie, 2012). Battered women who do call the police may risk dual arrest, which could lead to eviction, loss of income, foster care placement, or loss of public benefits, consequences that are disproportionately experienced by Black and Latinx women (Rajah et al, 2006; Richie, 2012).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An intersectional analysis of newspaper portrayals of the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

Singh

Bullock

2020

Translational Issues in Psychological Science

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The bipartisan passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994 brought gender-based violence to the national agenda but excluded members of marginalized groups. To address these limitations, three new provisions recognizing the unique circumstances of LGBT survivors, undocumented immigrants, and Native American residents of tribal lands were included in VAWA's 2013 reauthorization. However, these additions fueled partisanship and delayed the bill's passage. To assess how domestic violence was portrayed in mainstream media prior to the legislation's 2013 reauthorization, feminist discourse analysis was employed to analyze 93 articles from high-circulation newspapers. Although newspaper portrayals of all three provisions were examined, coverage overwhelmingly focused on tribal sovereignty over LGBT survivors and undocumented immigrants. Overall, we found that racial marginalization and its relationship to violence was covered superficially, that law enforcement was portrayed as the primary mechanism for protecting survivors, and that discussion of structural roots of violence was minimal. We regard this framing as a missed opportunity for raising public awareness of the intersectional nature of domestic violence. Implications for social policy and directions for future research are discussed. What is the significance of this article for the general public?This study examined race, class, gender, and their intersections in newspaper coverage of the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Increased law enforcement was presented as the preferred approach for protecting survivors rather than interventions that address systemic inequalities, and only limited consideration was given to the impact of race and racial marginalization. These portrayals may discourage holistic, intersectional understandings of gendered violence.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An intersectional analysis of newspaper portrayals of the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

Singh

Bullock

2020

Translational Issues in Psychological Science

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“…In cases of perceived existential threats, such fury is often intensified by imagery of moral depravity, in which the enemy is cast as inherently immoral, degenerate, or demonic (Bruneau et al, 2018; Bustamante et al, 2018, 2019; Kteily & Landry, 2022; Landry et al, 2021; Lang, 2020). The politics of White rage traffics in such imagery, driven by the fear that the nation’s pure people—White Christians—are experiencing existential threats (Ott & Dickinson, 2019, Chapter 2).…”

Section: What Is Righteous Rage?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The proud boys raging righteously at the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021: A hate group in action.

Rothbart¹,

Stebbins²

2023

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology

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Righteous rage constitutes an expression of political power for many hate groups operating currently in the United States, enticing them toward emotionally charged aggression against their adversaries. We offer a case study of one such group—the Proud Boys—in the context of their violent attack of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Rather than a momentary feeling, their righteous rage is a potent force for forming, defining, and organizing their mission to overpower their adversaries. In particular, their righteous rage is defined by (a) behavioral manifestations, (b) the emotional contagious impact of such manifestations, and (c) the centrality of raging to one’s identity as a social movement. Regarding their identity, they tend to don Proud Boy symbols on their clothes, wear helmets, and carry lethal weapons, as if aspiring to exhibit the warrior’s bravery, valor, strength, and devotion. The Proud Boys members self-position as warriors protecting the nation, Western chauvinism and (more recently) the White race. In raging righteously, the Proud Boys are absorbed with evildoers, seeking to expose their malicious past and attempting to subvert their current designs. With such absorption, the emotionally charged rationale for aggression is set in place.

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“…Unlawful or discretionary arrests—charges for low-level and nonviolent offenses that are legally recognized as noncriminal—and unwarranted detainments, the third category on the Continuum, describe instances in which police unjustly or without cause arrest or temporarily detain people; experiences that are disproportionately higher for Black people than White people in the United States (Bustamante et al, 2019). Analyses of city and county police arrest data voluntarily reported to the FBI showed that in 800 jurisdictions, Black people were five times more likely to be arrested than White people, after controlling for the demographics of the cities and counties served; in 250 jurisdictions, Black people were 10 times more likely to be arrested than White people (Thomas et al, 2020).…”

Section: The Anti-black Police Brutality Continuummentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond “heartfelt condolences”: A critical take on mainstream psychology’s responses to anti-Black police brutality.

Bowleg

Boone

Holt

et al. 2022

American Psychologist

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Anti-Black police brutality in the United States is not a new problem, but at least a 400-year old one. Mainstream psychology has responded to this critical racial and social justice issue by conceptualizing it primarily as an outcome of police officers' social cognition (e.g., threat perceptions) or implicit racial biases. Such individualistic and cognitive perspectives, however, ignore the fundamental role of anti-Black structural racism in facilitating the ability of law enforcement to terrorize, brutalize, and kill Black people with impunity. As with the media and public attention, mainstream psychology has also tended to frame acts of anti-Black police brutality as outliers, or occasional lethal and spectacular events, rather than as a broad spectrum of routine acts that structure policing and police brutality as a world for Black people in the United States. Informed by critical psychology, and the critical theoretical frameworks of critical race theory, intersectionality, and Afro-Pessimism, the goal of this article is to critically engage with the topic of anti-Black police brutality. By critically engage, we mean expose and challenge the economic, social, and material power relations that disproportionately expose Black people to police brutality; and conceptualize police brutality not as a series of aberrant incidents, but as a structure that in essence constructs and reifies Blackness and Whiteness. We also introduce the Anti-Black Police Brutality Continuum, a conceptual framework of police brutality as a broad spectrum of routine manifestations of anti-Black structural racism, and criticize mainstream psychology's deferral of a critical and transformative response to anti-Black police brutality.

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Cumulative Dehumanization in Everyday Policing: The Psychological, Affective, and Material Consequences of Discretionary Arrests

Cited by 12 publications

References 86 publications

An intersectional analysis of newspaper portrayals of the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

An intersectional analysis of newspaper portrayals of the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

The proud boys raging righteously at the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021: A hate group in action.

Beyond “heartfelt condolences”: A critical take on mainstream psychology’s responses to anti-Black police brutality.

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