Perceived Threat and Police Killings: What Ideological Mechanisms Connect Population Change to Internal State Violence?

• In Event: Race and Police Violence

Abstract

Police killings are a social problem. While the legitimate use of force is a necessary feature of police safety and public well-being, the illegitimate use of force can oppress groups by enacting latent prejudices, deterring groups from reporting crimes, and cultivating police distrust. Since police disproportionately use deadly force on Black men, some scholars have argued that police killings are a form of social control in response to perceived racial threat. However, this research focuses primarily on structural determinants of police use of deadly force, leaving the ideological mechanisms which connect population changes to individual actions unexamined. I examine attitudinal and ideological correlates of internal state violence. I examine the effects of racial threat, fear of crime, punitive attitudes, vigilantism, and crime rates on police killings. I use growth curve mixed-effects regression models to analyze unique and encompassing data of police killings at the county level. Results indicate that racial threat explains much variation in police killings against Blacks, but is mediated by fear of crime and punitive attitudes. Moreover, regions that espouse vigilantism tend to have more police killings and regions that value vigilantism with recent growth in minority populations tend to have higher police killings of Blacks.

Author

• Scott Duxbury, The Ohio State University