Race, class and support for police use of force

Arthur, John A.; Case, Charles E.

doi:10.1007/bf01307910

Cited by 39 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Moreover, religious fundamentalists tend to approve of corporal punishment for children (Ellison, Bartowski, and Segal, ), an orientation that suggests approval of the use of violence to control those who violate rules. Previous studies have shown that religious fundamentalists tend to express greater support for police use of force (Arthur and Case, ; Barkan and Cohn, ).…”

Section: Explaining Support For Police Use Of Forcementioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Better Understanding of Politicized Policing Attitudes: Conflicted Conservatism and Support for Police Use of Force

Silver

Pickett

2015

Criminology

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America is in the midst of an extraordinary public debate about police policy. “Conflicted conservatives,” who are symbolically conservative but operationally liberal, may have a disproportionate influence on policy making. Specifically, conflicted conservatives may be more likely to vote across party lines because they attend more to utilitarian concerns about social conditions and government performance than to symbolic issues. Prior criminological research, however, typically has treated conservatives as a homogenous group. We use data from the General Social Survey to explore the extent and correlates of global and situational support for police use of force among conflicted conservatives and other political groups. The findings from logistic regression models estimated with two analytic samples (N = 11,119 and 2,069) indicate that conflicted conservatives’ attitudes about police use of force are distinct from those of “consistent conservatives” who are both symbolically and operationally conservative, but do not reflect a unique consideration of utilitarian concerns over symbolic beliefs. Two other notable findings emerged: 1) Racial attitudes predicted support for police use of excessive force invariably across political groups and 2) public support for excessive force increased substantially during the first decade of the twenty‐first century, sharply contrasting trends in general punitive sentiment.

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Section: Explaining Support For Police Use Of Forcementioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Better Understanding of Politicized Policing Attitudes: Conflicted Conservatism and Support for Police Use of Force

Silver

Pickett

2015

Criminology

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“…Racial groups have been shown to differ greatly in their support for the death penalty (e.g., Barkan and Cohn, ; Unnever and Cullen, , ). Researchers have suggested that the gap in level of support between Whites and Blacks has widened insofar as minorities perceive themselves to be the disproportionate recipient of the most severe criminal justice sanctions (Arthur and Case, ; Jacobs, Carmichael, and Kent, ; Keil and Vito, ; Young, ). Increased awareness of the disproportionate use of the death penalty on minority offenders may have led to declines in support for the death penalty among non‐Whites but also for some Whites.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Age, Period, and Cohort Effects on Death Penalty Attitudes in the United States, 1974–2014

2017

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In this article, we further the understanding of both changes in public opinion on capital punishment in the United States and changes in the factors associated with public opinion on the death penalty. Support for the death penalty may be motivated by events happening during specific time periods, and it can vary across birth cohorts as a result of cohort‐specific socialization processes, demographic changes, and formative events that are specific to each generation. An explication of the sources of and variation in death penalty attitudes over time would benefit from the accounting for the age of the respondent, the year of the survey response, and the birth cohort of the respondent. We improve on previous research by using multiple approaches including hierarchical age–period–cohort models and data from the General Social Survey (N = 41,474) to examine changes in death penalty attitudes over time and across birth cohorts. The results showed curvilinear age effects, strong period effects, and weak cohort effects on death penalty support. The violent crime rate explained much of the variation in support for the death penalty across periods. The examination of subgroup differences suggests that support for the death penalty is becoming concentrated among Whites, Protestants, and Republicans.

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“…Overall, racial minorities have less power in American society. Studies that have specifically investigated attitudes toward police use of force have found that minorities generally disapprove of police violence (Arthur 1993;Arthur and Case 1994;Cullen et al 1996). Other studies have indicated that minorities feel the criminal justice system is biased in general, and that minorities are unable to receive fair treatment from police and the larger judicial system.…”

Section: Racementioning

confidence: 99%

Who Cares If Police Become Violent? Explaining Approval of Police Use of Force Using a National Sample

Thompson

Lee

2004

Sociological Inquiry

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Understanding police violence is important in part because police violence, if generally tolerated, could transform a society based on law into one governed by political and personal whim. This research asks whether the conflict perspective can explain which groups are more likely to approve of police use of force, and whether several dimensions of power are at issue or just a few. Previous studies have found that race is the most important factor in determining approval of police use of force. Gender, age, class, and other variables have shown mixed results. Using a national sample (1998 General Social Survey), this paper contributes a more comprehensive examination of this issue to the small body of literature in this area. We look at approval of police use of force in five scenarios. Our findings show that minorities and women are more likely to disapprove of police use of force. Supporting a narrow application of conflict theory, other dimensions of power appear not to affect attitudes toward police hitting citizens. Context of violence matters too. When situations are not actively threatening for officers, by near consensus, violence is unacceptable. Disagreement comes from less clear-cut circumstances.

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Race, class and support for police use of force

Cited by 39 publications

References 10 publications

Toward a Better Understanding of Politicized Policing Attitudes: Conflicted Conservatism and Support for Police Use of Force

Toward a Better Understanding of Politicized Policing Attitudes: Conflicted Conservatism and Support for Police Use of Force

Age, Period, and Cohort Effects on Death Penalty Attitudes in the United States, 1974–2014

Who Cares If Police Become Violent? Explaining Approval of Police Use of Force Using a National Sample

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