Encountering the Police: Studying Latin@ and Black Peoples' Experiences, Interactions, and Perceptions

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Widespread protests following the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland capture the deadly consequences of police encounters in marginalized communities throughout the U.S. Using a variety of methods including ethnographic fieldwork, oral history interviews, and survey data and content analyses, this panel explores the practical and theoretical contours of police control and violence in communities of color. Panelists draw from data sources in a wide variety of communities and pay particular attention to the symbolic and structural roots of racial disparities in law enforcement outcomes. Panelists will explore how traffic stop experiences shape citizen behavior in future police encounters; examine whether officers resort to deadly force more readily in shooting cases involving people of color; and identify the ways social, cultural, and economic marginality shape convicted murderers’ perceptions of police.

Sub Unit

• Area VIII: Policing / 56: Policing, Race, Ethnicity, and other Dimensions of Inequality

Individual Presentations

• Assessing the Affect of Traffic Stops on Calling the Police - Joselyne Chenane, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Exploring the Two Trigger Fingers Thesis: Racial and Ethnic Differences in Officer Involved Shootings - Robert J. Duran, University of Tennessee; Oralia Loza, University of Texas at El Paso

• Latino Capital Punishment Defendants’ and Their Families’ Views of the Police: Exploring Attitudes towards the Police via Multiple Marginality Theory - Edwardo Portillo, University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Chair

• Luis Daniel Gascon, University of San Francisco

Discussant

• Luis Daniel Gascon, University of San Francisco