Policing Norms: Punishment and the Politics of Respectability in Black America”

• In Event: Justice and Injustice: Political Science Perspectives on Crime and Punishment Mini-Conference: Surviving and Contesting State Violence

Abstract

This manuscript considers the mechanisms that motivate members of stigmatized social groups
to punish ingroup
members. Using survey data collected from 500 Black respondents recruited
by YouGov and experimental data collected using Amazon's TurkPrime platform, I examine both
esteem based motivations and instrumental motivations for ingroup
punishment among Black
Americans. In particular, this project considers the extent to which these motivations explain
variation in Black support for racialized punitive social policies that bear disproportionately on
ingroup
members. Multivariate and supplementary experimental analyses suggest that ingroup
policing and punishment are motivated both by a desire to protect the image of the group and a
desire to prevent more negative treatment of the group by dominant outgroups.
These findings
not only advance our understanding of the role identity and threat play in minority group politics,
but provide a useful framework to examine heterogeneity in opinion among members of other
stigmatized groups.

Author

• Hakeem Jerome Jefferson, Stanford University