Most judicial, regulatory, and administrative systems, at least formally, are concerned with the ... more Most judicial, regulatory, and administrative systems, at least formally, are concerned with the fairness and transparency of their decisions concerning the public. Fairness and transparency of criminal justice operations are critical to creating trust in the legal system and assuring people that the larger social system is legitimate and worthy of support. However, deviations from objective and fair decision-making can be concealed when key actors who are responsible for deciding outcomes in their organizations are also responsible for collecting, assembling, evaluating, and presenting the information on which their decisions are based. Under these conditions such systems are at risk of what we term “endogenous system bias,” where data are acquired and altered in ways to justify desired outcomes that are neither fair nor transparent. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a general model of decision-making constraints that can produce endogenous system bias, (2) review resear...
Guns are highly visible in the news, in politics, and in American culture more broadly. While mos... more Guns are highly visible in the news, in politics, and in American culture more broadly. While most Americans support some gun control, a significant and vocal minority of Americans are firmly opposed. Drawing on work from the recently developing sociology of modern gun culture, we propose an intersectional threat model—wherein perceived threats to multiple privileged identities provoke a distinct response—for understanding the positions Americans take on gun policies. Using data from a 2018 national survey conducted by the American National Election Survey, we find a robust role for perceived threats along gender, race, and citizenship lines in opposition to background checks for private sales and an assault weapons ban as well as support for arming teachers. Interactions reveal multiplicative effects: that gender threats matter more when racial and immigrant threats are also felt. We discuss implications for the prospect of policy and for understanding the pro-gun alt-right movemen...
Objectives Police use of excessive—even fatal—force is a significant social issue, one at the sym... more Objectives Police use of excessive—even fatal—force is a significant social issue, one at the symbolic heart of the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement. However, a substantial number of Americans—disproportionately White—tend to minimize the prevalence of this issue. We seek to explain differences in these views. Methods We look at whether experiences with the police, politics, and three measures of racial attitudes explain differences in views of the prevalence of police use of excessive force, and we specifically test for whether these factors help explain racial stratification in these views. Using data from three different recent national surveys collected by the American National Election Studies, we attempt to replicate our findings within this paper. Results Views of police use of force are highly stratified by race and politics and racial attitudes—in particular racial resentment—play an important role in explaining these differences. Conclusions If we hope to address t...
It matters how people view the police—and that there is a substantial racial gap in these views. ... more It matters how people view the police—and that there is a substantial racial gap in these views. Research has primarily focused on police experiences to explain generally less-positive views among Black Americans. We recommend a subtle but vital shift in focus, seeking instead to explain the remarkably more favorable average views about the police among White Americans. Utilizing comparable data from two 2016 American National Election Studies surveys, we explore the role of contact with the police, politics, and three different dimensions of racial attitudes and views, finding views about the police among White Americans to be shaped in primary ways by concerns about Black Americans. These factors, and racial resentment in particular, explain a significant portion of the average difference in views of the police between Black and White Americans. We discuss the implications of this subtle shift in focus, particularly for work which sets positive views about the police as the goal.
In the spring and summer of 2020, a remarkable number of Americans participated in a remarkable n... more In the spring and summer of 2020, a remarkable number of Americans participated in a remarkable number of protests in support of Black Lives Matter. How did the general public understand these protests, and where does support for the movement stand overall? We answer this question by drawing on several national surveys from 2020 and then examining the results of a framing experiment we conducted in June 2020. We structure the story we find in two parts—the partisans and the persuadables—both of whom are important to understanding public views of Black Lives Matter. Democrats and Republicans differ strongly in their views of the movement but are similar in the firmness of those views, which did not change in response to our framing experiment. Nonpartisans, in contrast, were more persuadable, though their reactions to some of our frames were conditioned by racial resentment. We conclude by setting the movement in historical context and assessing its impact, which we describe as compl...
Through this study, we shed new light on a key line of inquiry for criminologists: the way the me... more Through this study, we shed new light on a key line of inquiry for criminologists: the way the media influence the public’s understanding of crime and justice. We argue for expanding the lens of studies on the media’s construction of crime, moving away from one-dimensional reactions to crime to an integrated set of frames about crime and justice policy while considering the potential influence of a diverse array of media forms and content. Most critically, this social construction process must be placed in context, specifically, the racial composition in which people consume media. By using two nationally representative surveys matched with contextual data, we identify two forms of media consumption that seem important to understandings of crime: local television news and TV crime dramas. Interestingly, local news seems more important than national news even to perceptions of national crime trends, whereas news consumed over the Internet is not relevant, nor are 24-hour cable news channels once political views are taken into account. Television news viewers are also more likely to support tougher crime policies. Importantly, context matters: The influence of television news and crime dramas on perceptions of crime is strongest among White respondents who live near larger numbers of Black neighbors.
Hate crimes have received substantial scholarly attention, largely focusing on victims from margi... more Hate crimes have received substantial scholarly attention, largely focusing on victims from marginal groups. Large numbers of White Americans also report being the victim of racial hate crime, though very little research has sought to examine the etiology or meaning of anti-White hate crimes. The present work explores the neighborhood context of hate crimes against non-Hispanic Whites in a majority-White city—comparing police reports with self-reported victimizations. Police reports of anti-White hate crimes are most common in areas that have high rates of nonhate crimes and residential instability. Perceptions of bias incidents, by contrast, appear largely driven by the racial composition. Hate crimes against members of dominant groups appear fundamentally distinct from hate crimes against members of subordinate groups and require separate theoretical models of their substantive meaning and etiology. In general, White residents appear to interpret the motivations for victimizations...
Since the Jim Crow era, overtly racist attitudes toward African-Americans have decreased. During ... more Since the Jim Crow era, overtly racist attitudes toward African-Americans have decreased. During this same period, however, racial inequalities have persisted and the approach to addressing such inequalities has shifted away from social assistance and toward punitive controls. This article poses an explanation for this seeming paradox, drawing on measures of implicit racial affect in a nationally representative survey to reveal a persisting relevance of racial bias in understandings of and support for public policies—even among those explicitly denying such bias. Among non-Hispanic whites, implicit racial bias is significantly associated with opposition to policies designed to ameliorate these inequalities as well as support for punitive crime policies. Racial bias appears to play a less important role in support or opposition to these policies among Hispanic whites and especially among African-Americans. Implications for public policy debates are discussed.
While the vast majority of research on the causes and consequences of fear of crime has been focu... more While the vast majority of research on the causes and consequences of fear of crime has been focused on personal fears, Warr and Ellison have suggested that fears for one's family are both more common and more important in explaining protective actions like gun ownership. The present work not only provides new evidence supporting these findings but also expands our understanding of altruistic fears in two important directions: by exploring the potential sources of such fears in exposure to crime and by exploring new potential responses to such fears, including residential mobility decisions. The results suggest that altruistic fears are rooted in personal experiences with victimization and personal evaluations of the local danger posed by crime-though the ways that people react to victimizations depend on their opportunities for personal versus altruistic fears. In turn, altruistic fears are associated with taking protective measures, withdrawing from local organizational partic...
ABSTRACT How are perceptions of the danger posed by crime colored by race? This work draws on the... more ABSTRACT How are perceptions of the danger posed by crime colored by race? This work draws on the contact hypothesis to explore the link between a neighborhood’s racial composition, interracial interactions, racial crime stereotypes, and perceptions of criminal danger. Using a recent survey of Seattle residents, I find that interracial interactions are associated with decreased crime stereotypes about racial and ethnic minorities—though not crime stereotypes about Whites. Moreover, crime stereotypes about racial and ethnic minorities are associated with reduced perceptions of neighborhood safety and increased anxieties about victimization, at least among White respondents and especially in neighborhoods with greater numbers of the targets of these stereotypes. I discuss interesting interracial differences in these processes as well as the complicated relationship between racial proximity, stereotypes, and perceptions of the danger posed by crime.
While substantial research attention has been paid to the disproportionately high levels of fear ... more While substantial research attention has been paid to the disproportionately high levels of fear of crime among women relative to men, less attention has been paid to the apparent mirror of this: that men have disproportionately more concern for female partners than women do for male partners. The work that does exist on fear for partners has focused exclusively on different-sex partnerships. The present article proposes and explores several explanations for sex differences in fear for partners among different-sex as well as same-sex partnerships. The analysis uses a sample of persons who live with a partner (155 in same-sex and 2,817 in different-sex partnerships) from a Seattle survey that includes measures of altruistic fear, as well as measures of personal, familial, sexual assault, and sexual identity bias victimizations. Results suggest that female partners inspire more fear regardless of the sex of the respondents, that sex differences persist even after perceptions of danger...
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2016
Scholars have long been interested in the intersection of race, crime, justice, and presidential ... more Scholars have long been interested in the intersection of race, crime, justice, and presidential politics, focusing particularly on the “southern strategy” and the “war on crime.” A recent string of highly-publicized citizen deaths at the hands of police and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement have brought renewed visibility to this racially-driven intersection, and in particular to issues involving contact with and attitudes toward the police. Using data from the 2016 Pilot Study of the American National Election Studies, this study explores how contact with the criminal justice system and perceptions of police injustice shape political behavior in the modern era, with a specific emphasis on prospective participation and candidate choice in the 2016 presidential election. The results indicate that being stopped by the police—an experience that can feel invasive and unjust—may motivate political participation, while spending time in jail or prison—an experience associat...
The confrontations between civilian protesters and police forces in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 an... more The confrontations between civilian protesters and police forces in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and Baltimore, Maryland in 2015 sparked a renewed public debate about the "militarization" of the police. Politicians and pundits expressed concern that the images and video of police officers confronting civilian protesters armed with machine guns and armored vehicles disseminated through mainstream and social media would undermine the mass public's trust in law enforcement and rule of law, more broadly. We treated this concern as an empirical question. In May 2016, we fielded a survey experiment to a sample of participants drawn from Qualtrics' national, online, opt-in panel. We randomly-exposed participants to one of three news pictures that depicted a spectrum of police-civilian interactions, ranging in nature from friendly to hostile. Images were designed to evoke thoughts of militarized policing, community policing, and stop-and-frisk policing. This survey data set ...
Research (SBR-9513040). The funding agencies bear no responsibility for the analyses and interpre... more Research (SBR-9513040). The funding agencies bear no responsibility for the analyses and interpretations drawn here. RACE AND NEIGHBORHOOD CODES OF VIOLENCE
Most judicial, regulatory, and administrative systems, at least formally, are concerned with the ... more Most judicial, regulatory, and administrative systems, at least formally, are concerned with the fairness and transparency of their decisions concerning the public. Fairness and transparency of criminal justice operations are critical to creating trust in the legal system and assuring people that the larger social system is legitimate and worthy of support. However, deviations from objective and fair decision-making can be concealed when key actors who are responsible for deciding outcomes in their organizations are also responsible for collecting, assembling, evaluating, and presenting the information on which their decisions are based. Under these conditions such systems are at risk of what we term “endogenous system bias,” where data are acquired and altered in ways to justify desired outcomes that are neither fair nor transparent. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a general model of decision-making constraints that can produce endogenous system bias, (2) review resear...
Guns are highly visible in the news, in politics, and in American culture more broadly. While mos... more Guns are highly visible in the news, in politics, and in American culture more broadly. While most Americans support some gun control, a significant and vocal minority of Americans are firmly opposed. Drawing on work from the recently developing sociology of modern gun culture, we propose an intersectional threat model—wherein perceived threats to multiple privileged identities provoke a distinct response—for understanding the positions Americans take on gun policies. Using data from a 2018 national survey conducted by the American National Election Survey, we find a robust role for perceived threats along gender, race, and citizenship lines in opposition to background checks for private sales and an assault weapons ban as well as support for arming teachers. Interactions reveal multiplicative effects: that gender threats matter more when racial and immigrant threats are also felt. We discuss implications for the prospect of policy and for understanding the pro-gun alt-right movemen...
Objectives Police use of excessive—even fatal—force is a significant social issue, one at the sym... more Objectives Police use of excessive—even fatal—force is a significant social issue, one at the symbolic heart of the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement. However, a substantial number of Americans—disproportionately White—tend to minimize the prevalence of this issue. We seek to explain differences in these views. Methods We look at whether experiences with the police, politics, and three measures of racial attitudes explain differences in views of the prevalence of police use of excessive force, and we specifically test for whether these factors help explain racial stratification in these views. Using data from three different recent national surveys collected by the American National Election Studies, we attempt to replicate our findings within this paper. Results Views of police use of force are highly stratified by race and politics and racial attitudes—in particular racial resentment—play an important role in explaining these differences. Conclusions If we hope to address t...
It matters how people view the police—and that there is a substantial racial gap in these views. ... more It matters how people view the police—and that there is a substantial racial gap in these views. Research has primarily focused on police experiences to explain generally less-positive views among Black Americans. We recommend a subtle but vital shift in focus, seeking instead to explain the remarkably more favorable average views about the police among White Americans. Utilizing comparable data from two 2016 American National Election Studies surveys, we explore the role of contact with the police, politics, and three different dimensions of racial attitudes and views, finding views about the police among White Americans to be shaped in primary ways by concerns about Black Americans. These factors, and racial resentment in particular, explain a significant portion of the average difference in views of the police between Black and White Americans. We discuss the implications of this subtle shift in focus, particularly for work which sets positive views about the police as the goal.
In the spring and summer of 2020, a remarkable number of Americans participated in a remarkable n... more In the spring and summer of 2020, a remarkable number of Americans participated in a remarkable number of protests in support of Black Lives Matter. How did the general public understand these protests, and where does support for the movement stand overall? We answer this question by drawing on several national surveys from 2020 and then examining the results of a framing experiment we conducted in June 2020. We structure the story we find in two parts—the partisans and the persuadables—both of whom are important to understanding public views of Black Lives Matter. Democrats and Republicans differ strongly in their views of the movement but are similar in the firmness of those views, which did not change in response to our framing experiment. Nonpartisans, in contrast, were more persuadable, though their reactions to some of our frames were conditioned by racial resentment. We conclude by setting the movement in historical context and assessing its impact, which we describe as compl...
Through this study, we shed new light on a key line of inquiry for criminologists: the way the me... more Through this study, we shed new light on a key line of inquiry for criminologists: the way the media influence the public’s understanding of crime and justice. We argue for expanding the lens of studies on the media’s construction of crime, moving away from one-dimensional reactions to crime to an integrated set of frames about crime and justice policy while considering the potential influence of a diverse array of media forms and content. Most critically, this social construction process must be placed in context, specifically, the racial composition in which people consume media. By using two nationally representative surveys matched with contextual data, we identify two forms of media consumption that seem important to understandings of crime: local television news and TV crime dramas. Interestingly, local news seems more important than national news even to perceptions of national crime trends, whereas news consumed over the Internet is not relevant, nor are 24-hour cable news channels once political views are taken into account. Television news viewers are also more likely to support tougher crime policies. Importantly, context matters: The influence of television news and crime dramas on perceptions of crime is strongest among White respondents who live near larger numbers of Black neighbors.
Hate crimes have received substantial scholarly attention, largely focusing on victims from margi... more Hate crimes have received substantial scholarly attention, largely focusing on victims from marginal groups. Large numbers of White Americans also report being the victim of racial hate crime, though very little research has sought to examine the etiology or meaning of anti-White hate crimes. The present work explores the neighborhood context of hate crimes against non-Hispanic Whites in a majority-White city—comparing police reports with self-reported victimizations. Police reports of anti-White hate crimes are most common in areas that have high rates of nonhate crimes and residential instability. Perceptions of bias incidents, by contrast, appear largely driven by the racial composition. Hate crimes against members of dominant groups appear fundamentally distinct from hate crimes against members of subordinate groups and require separate theoretical models of their substantive meaning and etiology. In general, White residents appear to interpret the motivations for victimizations...
Since the Jim Crow era, overtly racist attitudes toward African-Americans have decreased. During ... more Since the Jim Crow era, overtly racist attitudes toward African-Americans have decreased. During this same period, however, racial inequalities have persisted and the approach to addressing such inequalities has shifted away from social assistance and toward punitive controls. This article poses an explanation for this seeming paradox, drawing on measures of implicit racial affect in a nationally representative survey to reveal a persisting relevance of racial bias in understandings of and support for public policies—even among those explicitly denying such bias. Among non-Hispanic whites, implicit racial bias is significantly associated with opposition to policies designed to ameliorate these inequalities as well as support for punitive crime policies. Racial bias appears to play a less important role in support or opposition to these policies among Hispanic whites and especially among African-Americans. Implications for public policy debates are discussed.
While the vast majority of research on the causes and consequences of fear of crime has been focu... more While the vast majority of research on the causes and consequences of fear of crime has been focused on personal fears, Warr and Ellison have suggested that fears for one's family are both more common and more important in explaining protective actions like gun ownership. The present work not only provides new evidence supporting these findings but also expands our understanding of altruistic fears in two important directions: by exploring the potential sources of such fears in exposure to crime and by exploring new potential responses to such fears, including residential mobility decisions. The results suggest that altruistic fears are rooted in personal experiences with victimization and personal evaluations of the local danger posed by crime-though the ways that people react to victimizations depend on their opportunities for personal versus altruistic fears. In turn, altruistic fears are associated with taking protective measures, withdrawing from local organizational partic...
ABSTRACT How are perceptions of the danger posed by crime colored by race? This work draws on the... more ABSTRACT How are perceptions of the danger posed by crime colored by race? This work draws on the contact hypothesis to explore the link between a neighborhood’s racial composition, interracial interactions, racial crime stereotypes, and perceptions of criminal danger. Using a recent survey of Seattle residents, I find that interracial interactions are associated with decreased crime stereotypes about racial and ethnic minorities—though not crime stereotypes about Whites. Moreover, crime stereotypes about racial and ethnic minorities are associated with reduced perceptions of neighborhood safety and increased anxieties about victimization, at least among White respondents and especially in neighborhoods with greater numbers of the targets of these stereotypes. I discuss interesting interracial differences in these processes as well as the complicated relationship between racial proximity, stereotypes, and perceptions of the danger posed by crime.
While substantial research attention has been paid to the disproportionately high levels of fear ... more While substantial research attention has been paid to the disproportionately high levels of fear of crime among women relative to men, less attention has been paid to the apparent mirror of this: that men have disproportionately more concern for female partners than women do for male partners. The work that does exist on fear for partners has focused exclusively on different-sex partnerships. The present article proposes and explores several explanations for sex differences in fear for partners among different-sex as well as same-sex partnerships. The analysis uses a sample of persons who live with a partner (155 in same-sex and 2,817 in different-sex partnerships) from a Seattle survey that includes measures of altruistic fear, as well as measures of personal, familial, sexual assault, and sexual identity bias victimizations. Results suggest that female partners inspire more fear regardless of the sex of the respondents, that sex differences persist even after perceptions of danger...
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2016
Scholars have long been interested in the intersection of race, crime, justice, and presidential ... more Scholars have long been interested in the intersection of race, crime, justice, and presidential politics, focusing particularly on the “southern strategy” and the “war on crime.” A recent string of highly-publicized citizen deaths at the hands of police and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement have brought renewed visibility to this racially-driven intersection, and in particular to issues involving contact with and attitudes toward the police. Using data from the 2016 Pilot Study of the American National Election Studies, this study explores how contact with the criminal justice system and perceptions of police injustice shape political behavior in the modern era, with a specific emphasis on prospective participation and candidate choice in the 2016 presidential election. The results indicate that being stopped by the police—an experience that can feel invasive and unjust—may motivate political participation, while spending time in jail or prison—an experience associat...
The confrontations between civilian protesters and police forces in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 an... more The confrontations between civilian protesters and police forces in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and Baltimore, Maryland in 2015 sparked a renewed public debate about the "militarization" of the police. Politicians and pundits expressed concern that the images and video of police officers confronting civilian protesters armed with machine guns and armored vehicles disseminated through mainstream and social media would undermine the mass public's trust in law enforcement and rule of law, more broadly. We treated this concern as an empirical question. In May 2016, we fielded a survey experiment to a sample of participants drawn from Qualtrics' national, online, opt-in panel. We randomly-exposed participants to one of three news pictures that depicted a spectrum of police-civilian interactions, ranging in nature from friendly to hostile. Images were designed to evoke thoughts of militarized policing, community policing, and stop-and-frisk policing. This survey data set ...
Research (SBR-9513040). The funding agencies bear no responsibility for the analyses and interpre... more Research (SBR-9513040). The funding agencies bear no responsibility for the analyses and interpretations drawn here. RACE AND NEIGHBORHOOD CODES OF VIOLENCE
Many contested issues in the American public and political spheres are rooted in fundamentally di... more Many contested issues in the American public and political spheres are rooted in fundamentally differing views of the scope, causes, and consequences of social problems. This is certainly true for two major interrelated social problems with racial implications: crime and labor market inequalities. In the era since the civil rights movement made the open expression of racial bias less socially acceptable, however, public and political discussions of social problems with racial implications are often framed in purportedly race-neutral ways (Bonilla-Silva 2010; Schuman et al. 1997). Drawing on group position (Blumer 1958) and collective action framing (Benford and Snow 2000) perspectives and employing the 2008–2009 ANES Panel Study, the present work suggests an enduring influence of racial bias on the ways people understand these major social problems. In contrast to earlier eras, however, much of the contemporary role of racial bias is hidden. The current work employs an implicit measure of racial bias that is resistant to a social desirability bias (Payne et al. 2005) to reveal a more complete picture of the influence of racial bias on the way people perceive social problems—even among those who explicitly deny possessing such biases. Specifically, this work reveals roles for both explicit and implicit racial bias in the way non-Hispanic whites identify the severity of problems, attribute blame for problems, and are motivated to concern around particular issues.
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