Perceptions of Police Conduct When Race and Gender Are Considered

Pica, Emily; Thompson, Lauren E.; Pozzulo, Joanna; Sheahan, Chelsea L.

doi:10.1007/s11896-019-09346-1

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Inspired by recent research that finds eroding levels of public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system that have corresponded with increasing public awareness of anti-Black bias in the system (Kahn & Martin, 2016; Lerman & Weaver, 2014), as well as research demonstrating that Black Americans are more attuned to this bias than White Americans (Gramlich, 2019), we turned to perceptions of witness credibility to see if they were associated with the observed race effects. We wanted to test whether those general attitudinal features would shape how our jurors viewed the prosecution witnesses, given previous findings that general perceptions of police fairness and legitimacy predicted whether research participants viewed law enforcement as biased in specific instances (Pica et al, 2020), such that those viewing the Black defendant would rate the witnesses as less credible than those viewing the White defendant. We also expected that Black participants would rate the law enforcement witnesses, including the informant who was working with the FBI agent, as less credible than White participants, given the racial gap in general and specific views of police (Costanzo et al, 2010; Matsueda & Drakulich, 2009).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, some evidence suggests that jurors are particularly skeptical about the credibility of police and other government witnesses when the defendant is Black, compared to when he or she is White. For instance, Pica and colleagues (2020) found that their predominantly White sample of participants were more likely to view a discretionary police arrest for loitering as racially-motivated when the arrestee was Black, relative to a White arrestee. Participants’ individual attitudes about police legitimacy and fairness were significantly related to their assessments of whether the arrest was race-based.…”

Section: Defendant Race Case Factors and Biased Jury Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Race, witness credibility, and jury deliberation in a simulated drug trafficking trial.

Shaw¹,

Lynch²,

Laguna³

et al. 2021

Law and Human Behavior

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Objective: The present study integrates several distinct lines of jury decision-making research by examining how the racial identities of the defendant and an informant witness interact in a federal drug conspiracy trial scenario and by assessing whether jurors' individual racial identity and jury group racial composition influence their judgments. Hypotheses: We predicted that jurors would be biased against the Black defendant and would be more likely to convict after exposure to a White informant, among other hypotheses. Method: We recruited 822 nonstudent jury-eligible participants assigned to 144 jury groups. Each group was assigned to one of four onditions where defendant race (Black or White) and informant race (Black or White) was manipulated. Each group watched a realistic audio-visual trial presentation, then deliberated as a group to render a verdict. Results: Contrary to expectations, the conditions depicting a Black defendant yielded lower conviction rates compared to those with a White defendant-at both the predeliberation individual (odds ratio [OR] = 1.54) and postdeliberation group level (OR = 2.91)-while the informant race did not influence verdict outcomes. We also found that jurors rated the government witnesses as more credible when the defendant was White compared to when he was Black. Credibility ratings and verdict outcomes were also predicted by jurors' own race, although juror race did not interact with the race conditions when predicting verdicts. Conclusions: Jurors are sensitive to defendant race, and this sensitivity appears to strengthen after deliberation-but in a direction opposite to what was expected. One potential implication of our findings is that juries may operate as a check on system bias by applying greater scrutiny to law enforcement-derived evidence when the defendant is Black. Public Significance StatementThis study exposed mock jurors to a drug conspiracy case where law enforcement credibility was key to conviction and found that they were less likely to convict a Black defendant than a White defendant. Participants were more skeptical about the credibility of the law enforcement-derived testimony when the defendant was Black, opening the possibility that sensitivity to bias in the criminal justice system may influence how lay persons consider and assess evidence produced by system actors.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Defendant Race Case Factors and Biased Jury Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Race, witness credibility, and jury deliberation in a simulated drug trafficking trial.

Shaw¹,

Lynch²,

Laguna³

et al. 2021

Law and Human Behavior

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show abstract

“…In democratic societies, the public's trust is essential for a legitimate model of policing (Pica et al, 2019). Legitimacy is a facet of authority that leads individuals to believe that authority is entitled to be deferred to and obeyed (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Policing that is deemed legitimate is liable to sustain peaceful protest whereas a lack of perceived legitimacy may catalyze immediate and sizable conflict (Hoggett & Stott, 2010;Murray, 2010). There is a robust literature on people's opinions and attitudes towards the police that has assessed how people of various demographics (e.g., race and gender) feel about the police and measured people's perceptions of police conduct, appropriateness, and legitimacy (Culhane et al, 2016;Pica et al, 2019;Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2009). However, police legitimacy, and specifically whether the police response to public health emergencies and racial protests is rightful, proper, or suitable, is understudied (Johnson et al, 2014;Maguire, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When crises collide—Policing a pandemic during social unrest

Jipguep-Akhtar

Dickerson

Bradley

2021

JCSWB

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In 2020, the United States was shaken by concurrent crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial equality. Both crises present significant challenges for law enforcement. On the one hand, the protests for racial equality drew the public’s attention to the criminal justice system’s disparate treatment of Blacks and other people of colour. On the other hand, the pandemic required the expansion of police duties to enforce public health mandates. To ensure compliance, law enforcement may arrest, detain, and even use force to prevent the transmission of communicable diseases that may have an irreversible impact on human health, such as COVID-19. Policing, however, is at a critical point in America. The government is expanding police powers for the sake of public health; all the while, public indignation about police (ab)uses of power has fuelled calls for its defunding. It is therefore important to explore Americans’ views of policing pandemics during periods of social unrest, focusing on the recognition that socio-economic and racial inequities shape perceptions. The data from this project derives from surveys with Americans on the specific topics of race, policing, racial protests, and COVID-19. The study finds that Americans perceive the police as legitimate overall; however, there are divergences based on race, gender, and marital status. These differences may contribute meaningful insights to the current discourse on police legitimacy in America.

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“…Age and gender are both well-established correlates of criminal offending (e.g. Liu 2015;McGee & Farrington 2019;Piquero et al 2014;Van Mastrigt & Farrington 2009), and research has found parallel differences in perceptions of police by age Socia et al 2021) and gender (Engel 2005;Pica et al 2019).…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Background justice: the political context of adolescent legal socialization

Rodriguez-Whitney

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Individual perceptions of police have significant consequences for crime prevention, criminal investigations, and public safety. Police rely on citizens to report crime and cooperate with investigations. Additionally, research suggests improvements in perceptions of police can increase legal conformity and cooperation (Tyler 2017). A primary framework for researching perceptions of police is that of procedural justice and police legitimacy, which explores the ways in which officer behavior affects citizen perceptions of their conduct and even more global beliefs concerning whether police deserve the power they wield and whether they do so appropriately.From a theoretical perspective, this project begins with an analysis of normative political legitimacy as one of the oldest problems of political theoryhow to justify political power and legal authority over free and equal citizens. There are both normative and policy related reasons to study police legitimacy across political contexts. It is democratic intuitions and practices that legitimate police power, and through these legitimation processes the government claims a monopoly on justifiable violence against citizens. The police are arguably the government institution that relies most upon this claim to legitimate coercion. Moreover, the police enforce laws that are the products of the political system that justifies their power, and thus the legitimacy of police is intimately bound with the legitimacy of those broader institutions. We might ask whether it is even possible for the police to be normatively legitimate if they are charged with the enforcement of an illegitimate legal regime. While police should certainly treat people with dignity and respect, that is, in a procedurally just manner, there arises a concern that procedurally just policing may be capable of obscuring deeper, systemic injustice.

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Perceptions of Police Conduct When Race and Gender Are Considered

Cited by 7 publications

References 34 publications

Race, witness credibility, and jury deliberation in a simulated drug trafficking trial.

Race, witness credibility, and jury deliberation in a simulated drug trafficking trial.

When crises collide—Policing a pandemic during social unrest

Background justice: the political context of adolescent legal socialization

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