Racial Differences in Support for Authorities Finding and Prosecuting People Who Participated in the Capitol Insurrection

• In Event: Attitudes and the Criminal Court System

Abstract

Following persistent claims by Donald Trump that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, members of far-right extremist groups planned to disrupt the U.S. Congress from certifying Joseph Biden as the victor. On January 6th, 2021, far-right organizers coalesced outside the U.S. Capitol with Trump supporters from a nearby rally. Eventually, the crowd breached the Capitol perimeter using force. While some people wandered aimlessly, others searched out pre-determined targets with precision. In the aftermath, political leaders described the insurrection as a white supremacist attack on democracy. Claims of fraudulent Black votes in key cities propelling Biden to victory in battleground states, in conjunction with racist symbolism present at the insurrection, such as the Confederate flag, a noose, and racial slurs, reinforce this notion. This study used nationally representative data to test whether Black people would consider it more important than white people for federal law enforcement agencies to find and prosecute those who broke into the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection. Logistic regression results revealed that the odds of Black people considering it very important for federal law enforcement agencies to find and prosecute those who broke into the U.S. Capitol were 72% higher than the odds for white people.

Authors

• Alexander H. Updegrove, University of North Texas

• Jared Dmello, Sam Houston State University