Arab Immigrants’ Perceptions of the Police in an Ethnic Enclave Community

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

Abstract

While research on procedural justice and police legitimacy is substantial, studies aimed at understanding these concepts within immigrant communities are limited, even more so when looking at specific ethnic immigrant communities. When investigated, the relationship between police and immigrant communities has been identified as complex with factors like previous encounters with police in one’s country of origin, vicarious lived experiences, the media, political climate, and time in the United States impacting immigrants’ perceptions of and relationships with the police. Drawing on in-depth interviews with first- and second-generation Arab immigrants, as well as local law enforcement officers (N=91), this study sought to investigate Arab immigrants’ perceptions of police legitimacy in one of the largest Arab ethnic enclaves in the northeastern U.S. The findings reveal that a variety of factors significantly shaped participants’ perceptions of police legitimacy, including the disadvantaged urban context, the ethnic enclave itself, and others that have been identified in previous research. Further, some differences were observed between first- and second-generation participants’ perceptions of the police. The implications of these findings will be discussed, particularly as they pertain to the relationship between the police and immigrant communities.

Authors

• Amarat Zaatut, Temple University

• Shannon K. Jacobsen, Drexel University

• Hannah K. Steinman, Temple University