The Police-Military Equivalency Hypothesis, Revisited: A National Examination of Citizen Perceptions of Police Officers as Soldiers

• In Event: Public Opinion about the Police and Policing Reform

Abstract

In the past few years, the news and social media have been full of images of police officers using military equipment when monitoring and responding to protests. We hypothesize that these images, as well as media narratives such as the “war on crime” and “war on cops,” have led some citizens to begin to view police officers as soldiers in a war on crime instead of public servants. Using a nationally representative online survey, this study examines the prevalence of these beliefs and whether they are predicted by variables such as race, symbolic racism, and conservative crime ideology.

Authors

• Omeed Ilchi, Purdue University Northwest

• Shamma Hickling, Wayne State University

• James Frank, University of Cincinnati