State Violence and Perceptions of Victim Deservingness

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

Abstract

One of the primary purposes of the state is the hegemonic control of violence. However, despite
this central function of government, most political opinion research on citizen attitudes toward
the role of government focus on its redistributive role. We know comparatively little about how
Americans perceive the role of the state when it comes to its control of violence. The paucity of
research on attitudes toward state violence is striking in light of increasing public awareness of
police violence. With the advent and widespread proliferation of recording technologies, citizens
who previously had minimal negative contact with police are now privy to violent, sometimes
lethal, interactions between citizens and officers. The response to police killings and resultant
protests has been mixed. Some citizens are adamant that police are overstepping their roles,
while others argue that police violence is a response to dangerous and violent situations in which
officer’s lives are threatened. This split in public opinion is certainly divided along racial lines
with nearly twice as many Blacks as Whites expressing very little or no confidence in police in
Gallup polls from 2011 to 2014 (Gallup 2014). Using a survey experiment on a large sample of
White and Black Americans, we ask how racial attitudes and racial identity shape views about
who deserves violence from the state. Our findings suggest that White Americans view Blacks as
more deserving of violence than Whites, but these race differences are smaller than might be
anticipated. Instead, we find that racial attitudes are a strong predictor of both White and Black
Americans’ beliefs about who is responsible for violent interactions: racial conservatives are
more likely to blame citizens who are abused by police and less likely to blame officers.

Authors

• Mackenzie Leigh Israel-Trummel, University of Oklahoma

• Shea Streeter, Stanford University