Discrimination Experiences and Trust in the Police – Evidence from the DeZIM.panel

Abstract

The question of how discrimination affects trust in the police has gained increasing academic attention since the revelation of racist police violence, for example in the murder of George Floyd.Previous studies have largely been limited to the effect of discrimination by the police themselves. Discrimination experienced in other domains (e.g. in the work context, in public offices and authorities or during leisure time), which are more widespread, has so far been largely ignored. This paper analyses the association between discrimination experiences and trust in the police. In doing so, it is not limited to discrimination by the police itself but advances previous research by analysing the effect of political discrimination and societal discrimination. We draw on a novel data set, the DeZIM.panel, an offline recruited online panel of the German population between 18 and 67 (N ~3,500). Our findings show that not only being discriminated against by the police, but also the experience of discrimination in more general domains matter for trust in the police. While political discrimination relates negatively to trust in the police among immigrants and their descendants, societal discrimination only matters significantly for the majority population. In addition, the effect of political discrimination is conditional on German citizenship.