Did the Murder of George Floyd Damage Public Perceptions of Police and Law?

• In Event: Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Policing: Assessing Police Legitimacy and Opportunities for Reform

Abstract

The police killing of George Floyd energized the Black Lives Matter (BLM) social movement across the United States in the Summer of 2020. We test the impact on public perceptions of the fairness and legitimacy of the police and law. Drawing on data from three-wave longitudinal survey, each wave only three weeks apart and Floyd's murder happening immediately after the second wave, we used a novel design focused on differences in change over time to test whether public perceptions changed immediately after the killing of Floyd. We rely on a causal estimand of interest that focus on short-term effects following systematic exposure to treatment. Fielding multiple outcome markers, as well as multiple pseudo-placebo comparison variables, we found that perceptions of police procedural justice, distributive justice, and bounded authority, as well as perceptions of the legitimacy of the police and law, declined following Floyd’s murder. Levels of trust in science, identification with healthcare workers and collective efficacy perceptions did not change. The effects varied by participants’ political views and were particularly strong among respondents who do not support Trump. We conclude that the police killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests seemed to have damaged attitudes towards police and the law.

Authors

• Thiago Oliveira, University of Manchester

• Adam Fine, Arizona State University

• Jonathan Jackson, London School of Economics and Political Science

• Rick Trinkner, Arizona State University