Does racial discrimination matter: explaining perceived police bias across four racial/ethnic groups

Abstract

PurposeThis study uses a diverse sample of residents living in Northern California to study factors that are associated with public perceptions of police bias. The authors also investigate whether perceptions of racial discrimination mediate the relationships between race/ethnicity and perceptions of police bias.Design/methodology/approachThe sampling frame of the study was constructed through two stages. First, the frame included 212 census tracts in the study setting that comprise the study population. The authors stratified the census tracts by using demographic information from the most recent American Community Survey. The authors also used a multi-mode address-based design in which a household adult was invited through mail to participate in a web-based survey.FindingsThe authors found that racial/ethnic minorities (i.e. Latino, African American and Asian respondents) were more likely to experience racism and report police as biased than White residents. Racial and ethnic disparities in assessments of police bias, however, disappeared when controlling for direct and indirect experiences of racism, suggesting that experiences with racism are key factors explaining variations in perception of police bias across racial/ethnic groups.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalizability of the findings is unclear. Future research should focus on multiple cities to advance the understanding of perceptions of police bias. Second, the measures of direct and indirect experiences with racism do not identify the source of the problematic encounters, and thus the authors are unaware of the experiences respondents had with police officers.Practical implicationsThis paper includes the implications for the perceptions of police bias and how to improve police-citizen interactions.Social implicationsThis paper will facilitate ongoing debate on police-citizens interactions. Specifically, how experiences of racism can improve the understanding of bias toward the police.Originality/valueThis paper fulfills an research need to study perceptions of police bias among diverse immigrant populations.

Policing Asian communities in the United States: a systematic literature review and discussion

“…Most studies were cross-sectional, with eight (50%) using data collected from one or more samples at a single time point (Baluran, 2022;De Trinidad Young et al, 2022;Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Vogel, 2011;Wu et al, 2011Wu et al, , 2012Wu et al, , 2013Yuan et al, 2022). Seven (43.7%) studies were repeated cross-sectional, meaning the data were collected from different people over more than one period such as 60 months of state-level hospital ER admissions (Chu and Song, 2015;Edwards et al, 2019;Greenleaf et al, 2008;Medina et al, 2022;Moon and Corley, 2007;Mooney et al, 2018;Schwartz and Jahn, 2022).…”

“…Just under one-half of the studies (43.8%, n 5 7) used a population of cases or incidents such as traffic citations issued (Moon and Corley, 2007;Greenleaf et al, 2008;Ozkan et al, 2016;Mooney et al, 2018;Edwards et al, 2019;Schwartz and Jahn, 2022;Medina et al, 2022). Five studies (31.2%) used nonprobability samples (Wu et al, 2011(Wu et al, , 2012(Wu et al, , 2013Baluran, 2022;Chu and Song, 2015), and two studies (12.5%) used mixed sampling designs (Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Yuan et al, 2022). One study (6.25%) employed a probability sampling method (Vogel, 2011).…”

“…Most of the studies' sample members included only Asian residents (75%, n 5 12; Baluran, 2022; Chu and Song, 2015;De Trinidad Young et al, 2022;Edwards et al, 2019;Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Mooney et al, 2018;Schwartz and Jahn, 2022;Vogel, 2011;Wu et al, 2011Wu et al, , 2012Wu et al, , 2013Yuan et al, 2022); four studies (25%) included Asian residents and police officers (Moon and Corley, 2007;Greenleaf et al, 2008;Ozkan et al, 2016;Medina et al, 2022). Among the sixteen studies, five included sample members from California (De Trinidad Young et al, 2022;Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Mooney et al, 2018;Vogel, 2011;Yuan et al, 2022); four studies included sample members from New York City; and five studies (Baluran, 2022;Edwards et al, 2019;Medina et al, 2022;Ozkan et al, 2016) used national-level samples. Other studies included sample members from a "Midwestern state" (Moon and Corley, 2007) and a "Pacific Northwestern state" (Greenleaf et al, 2008).…”

“…Regarding sample populations, nine of the studies (56.2%) targeted local community members regardless of gender, age or other specific characteristics (Chu and Song, 2015;Edwards et al, 2019;Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Medina et al, 2022;Vogel, 2011;Wu et al, 2011Wu et al, , 2012Wu et al, , 2013Yuan et al, 2022). Four studies (25%) drew their samples from a mixture of community members, K-12 schools, college/university students and/or faculty and police or community organizations (Greenleaf et al, 2008;Moon and Corley, 2007;Schwartz and Jahn, 2022;Ozkan et al, 2016).…”

Immigrant status and neighborhood context on perceptions of police procedural justice

“…It remains unknown how immigrant generational status may affect people's views on police procedural justice, net of relevant controls such as race and ethnicity. Given the critical importance of immigrants’ perception of police procedural justice, which can impact their sense of obligation to obey police directives and willingness to cooperate with the police (Murphy and Mazerolle 2018; Pryce, Johnson, and Maguire 2017), perceptions of police bias (Wu, Smith, and Sun 2013; Yuan, Wu, and Melde 2022), and satisfaction with the police (Pryce 2018), it is critical to assess the effect of foreign‐born status, including immigrant generational status, on people's judgments of police procedural justice in the United States.…”