Minority Threat, Crime Control, and Police Resource Allocation in the Southwestern United States

Abstract

Numerous studies have examined political influences on communities' allocations of fiscal and personnel resources to policing. Rational choice theory maintains that these resources are distributed in accordance with the need for crime control, whereas conflict theory argues that they are allocated with the aim of controlling racial and ethnic minorities. Existing research more consistently supports the conflict argument, but important issues remain unaddressed. The authors tested that approach by examining allocations of police resources in large cities in the Southwest, the yet-to-be-studied region in which the majority of Hispanics reside. The analyses included the key variables from the rational choice and conflict perspectives, as well as proximity to the border between the United States and Mexico. Minimal effects existed for percent Hispanic, an important conflict theory variable. However, Anglo-Hispanic income inequality and proximity to the border had effects consistent with that perspective. Class divisions within the Hispanic community may explain this pattern of findings.

Racial Threat Theory: Assessing the Evidence, Requesting Redesign

“…This research suggests that support for increases in criminal justice expenditures varies by the minority group being examined. Holmes et al [16] find that percentage of Hispanics has a minimal influence on resource allocation as compared to percentage of Blacks. While percent Black has a strong, positive association with police resource allocation, percent Hispanic had a weak, positive relationship.…”

White Perceptions of Whether African Americans and Hispanics are Prone to Violence and Support for the Death Penalty

“…For example, most of it has sampled university students, and it has generally ignored the possibility that Whites may recognize different ethnicities among Hispanics (e.g., Cubans, Columbians, Mexicans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans; see Marin 1984;Martinez and Valenzuela 2006), which our research also fails to do. However, the extant literature indicates that: (1) Whites have constructed gendered negative stereotypes of Hispanics, (2) that they have deep historical roots, and (3) that these stereotypes include depictions of Hispanic men as being violent (Bender 2003;Castro 2006;Hagan and Palloni 1999;Holmes et al 2008;Martinez and Valenzuela 2006;Portillos 2006;Samora 1971). Marin (1984) used a free-response question format and found that the primary characteristic assigned to all Hispanic groups by 100 college students of different races and ethnicities was ''aggressive''; 64 percent of the respondents assigned this attribute to ''Chicanos.'…”

Racial Encroachment and the Formal Control of Space: Minority Group-Threat and Misdemeanor Arrests in Urban Communities

“…Given the highly visible pattern of Latino immigration in combination with criminal stereotypes (e.g. Holmes et al, 2008), it stands to reason that it would take fewer resident whites to mount a threat response in reply to Latino encroachment.…”