Minority Youth Attitudes Toward Police

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

This poster session shares the results and analysis of an on-line survey distributed to all Coppin State University graduate and undergraduate students in the Fall of 2011 and Spring of 2012. We examined Coppin student perceptions of the police and factors that appear to contribute toward these perceptions. Specifically, we analyzed survey data to determine relationships between student attitudes, demographic characteristics, personal experiences; peer and family experiences and other influences. Five dependent variables were created to capture key aspects of attitudes toward the police. These variables were: policing strategies, police negative, police positive, criminology and satisfaction. All Coppin students received an e-mail link inviting them to participate in the survey. Over 440 completed responses were received. Given media and other popular images of minority youth attitudes toward the police, the results are somewhat surprising and have implications for police-community relationships, community policing and crime-control/compstat strategies, especially in urban America. Coppin undergraduate Honors Students Krystal Roach and Ufuoma Agarin assisted with the literature review, data analysis and interpretation of the results under the supervision of Dr. Michael Berlin and Katherine Cameron.

Author

• Michael M. Berlin, Associate Professor