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

• In Event: Civilian-Police Encounters: Contemporary Implications for Race, Gender and Place (Organized by Division on People of Color and Crime)

Abstract

A large body of research has examined police behavior towards citizens and shows that police practices are geographically patterned. Disadvantaged neighborhood are more likely to receive punitive policing than more affluent communities. While studies show that a suspect’s behavior affects the way officers treat them, little is known about how citizens manage encounters with police when they occur. Drawing from a broader qualitative study of policing in the lives of African American residents and protesters in Ferguson, MO, this paper examines the strategic responses that 52 Black men and women employ to minimize police encounters and how they handle such interactions when they occur, along with the outcome associated with the strategy. Our findings suggest that while men and women use management responses that include questioning officers, complying with directives, and lodging a complaint against police, the outcome of questioning a cop is strikingly different between Black men and women. In addition, women were more likely to use the tactic of avoiding cops, and policing the police compared to men.

Authors

• Michael Conteh, Michigan State University

• Jennifer Cobbina, Michigan State University

• Collin Emrich, Michigan State University