Ferguson Effect: Race/Ethnicity and Public Expectations of the Police in Houston

• In Event: Experiences with the Criminal Justice System and Perceptions and Expectations of Police

Abstract

The Ferguson unrest following the shooting death of Michael Brown was the top national news during August 2014. The immediate and long-lasting effects of the Ferguson unrest on police-minority relations have been profoundly negative and irreversibly damaging across the nation. Relevant research has consistently found that citizens can be heavily influenced by how much and by how the police stories are reported. Consequently, residents’ expectations of the police may be significantly affected by media consumption. We probe the following questions in this paper: Did the Ferguson unrest have any “spillover” effect on public expectations of the police in Houston? If so, whether and how did the effect vary across different racial/ethnic minority groups in the city? The survey data for this study were collected from August to December 2014 in Houston, Texas. The beginning of the telephone survey coincided with the onset of the Ferguson unrest in August 2014. The survey was then put on hold and resumed three weeks after the Ferguson unrest. This unique feature of the data provides an excellent opportunity to examine the “during” and “after” effects of the Ferguson unrest on public expectations of the police across racial groups.

Authors

• Ling Ren, Sam Houston State University

• Phil He, Northeastern University