Race, Gender, and Responses to the Police Among Ferguson Residents and Protesters

Abstract

A large body of research has examined police behavior toward citizens and shown that police practices are geographically patterned. Disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to receive punitive policing than more affluent communities. However, little is known about how citizens manage encounters with police when they occur and few studies have examined how gender intersects with race and neighborhood context in determining reactions to and outcomes of police encounters. Using Black feminist theory as an analytical framework, we draw from in-depth interviews with Black residents and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri to analyze men and women's narrative accounts of involuntary police encounters to investigate how they respond to encounters with officers, how such tactics shaped police-citizen outcomes, and whether these patterns vary by gender. Our findings suggest that the strategies that citizens employed are common across both genders; however, the police-citizen outcome is demonstrably shaped by gender.

More than race? Intragroup differences by gender and age in perceptions of police among street-identified Black men and women.

“…The dominant rationale regarding this argument is that men commit more crimes, have higher arrest rates, and experience more excessive force by police, thus leading to men's more cynical views of police (Weitzer & Tuch, 2004). This rationale was confirmed by Cobbina et al (2019), This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…For example, Rios (2011) argued that marginalized Black and Latino boys sometimes engaged in "resistance identities" or "deviant politics" toward police, which included using profanity, evading arrest, or failing to cooperate (see also Payne et al, 2023). Other scholars argued that the "Ferguson effect," after the policeinvolved shooting of Michael Brown, intensified negative citizenpolice encounters, as some street-identified Black citizens used physical aggression or "resistance posturing" toward police during national protests (Abt, 2019;Cobbina et al, 2019).…”

Policing and the Courts

“…Black and Latinx young people in New York experienced microaggressions from the police, which included being stopped too often, the presumption of criminality and being treated as inferior (Rengifo & Pater, 2017). Cobbina et al (2019) researched how Black residents in Ferguson, Missouri who were involved in community action after the police shooting of Michael Brown managed involuntary police encounters. Women and men both adopted strategies of resisting the police or capitulating by being co-operative.…”

At the Intersection of Disadvantage: Socioeconomic Status Heightens Ethnic Group Differences in Trust in the Police

“…The relationship between police and citizens in low SES communities differs markedly from that of middle-class or high-income neighbourhoods—differences that are attributable to the more aggressive and pervasive policing styles used by police in poor (vs. wealthy) neighbourhoods (see Cobbina, Conteh, & Emrich, 2017). For example, those living in affluent neighbourhoods experience lower crime rates and, as a result, are subjected to less invasive forms of policing (Weitzer & Tuch, 1999).…”