The Racial-Ethnic Continuum and Perceptions of Police Misconduct

• In Event: Roundtable: Race, Ethnicity and Crime

Abstract

Research suggests a racial-ethnic hierarchy exists where perceptions of police are concerned, with African Americans exhibiting the most negative attitudes about police, Whites the most positive, and Hispanics holding more intermediate attitudes. Other research, however, does not support the intermediacy of Hispanic attitudes and little study has been made of Asian attitudes. This study further tests the premise for such a hierarchy by examining the views of both Hispanics and Asians alongside those of African Americans and Whites as they relate to police misconduct, as well as considering other factors previously shown to impact attitudes about police, such as neighborhood context, exposure to media coverage of policing, perceptions of community policing, and encounters with police.

Authors

• Lisa Graziano, California State University, Los Angeles

• Jane Gauthier, California State University, Los Angeles