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Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The Role of Racial Stereotypes
Abstract
Social psychological theories of social stereotyping are used to generate a series of predictions about the conditions under which whites' stereotypes of African-Americans are likely to bias their evaluations of blacks in the context of crime. Stereotypes of African-Americans should influence attitudes on crime policy primarily when criminals are black, crimes are violent, policies are punitive, and no individuating information seriously undercuts the stereotype. Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) procedures are used to administer a series of survey experiments where the race and other characteristics of the target (e.g., criminal suspects, furlough programs, etc.) are manipulated in interviews with Lexington, Kentucky residents in a 1994 probability survey. Consistent with our expectations, we find a strong relationship between whites' images of African-American and judgments of crime and punishment, but only for black criminals who commit violent crimes, and only for punitive (vs. preventive) policies. Because these are the circumstances which typically surround the crime issue, we conclude that much of public opinion in this domain is influenced by racial concerns.
... For example, racial identity is a predictor of perceived criminality (Hurwitz & Peffley, 1997). More specifically, Black males are implicitly associated with criminality (Eberhardt et al., 2004;Welch, 2007) and are perceived as more criminal than Indigenous and White males (Maeder & McManus, 2022). ...
The race-crime congruence effect occurs when defendants accused of racially stereotypic crimes receive more punitive outcomes than those accused of non-stereotypic crimes. Additionally, data shows that specific facial cues elicit criminal stereotypes. However, limited data on how appearance-based inferences of criminality impact case judgments exists. Through two studies, we aimed 1) to expand the race-crime congruence effect literature by investigating differences in judgments towards Black, White, and Hispanic defendants, 2) to further explore the predictors of perceived defendant criminality, and 3) to examine the impact of perceived criminality on case judgments. Six hundred eighty-seven participants were randomly assigned to one of nine brief case summaries in a 3 (race) × 3 (stereotypic crime) factorial design and completed various measures. Contrary to predictions, no significant race-crime congruence effects were found along with mixed results regarding the predictors of perceived criminality. However, in study one, perceived criminality mediated the relationship between defendant race x participant prejudice and stability attributions. In study two, stability attributions mediated the relationship between perceived criminality and recommended punishments. These studies provide two substantial contributions to the literature. The results provide evidence of appearance-based inferences of criminality impacting perceptions of defendant behavior and judgments. Additionally, causal beliefs of defendant behavior may in part explain why one’s appearance impacts other’s judgments of them.
... Racial prejudice may lead to people to respond differently to victims and record holders depending on their race (Hurwitz & Peffley, 1997;Peffley et al., 2017;Rice et al., 2022). We also know that gender is one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of emotions and attitudes toward sexual crime (Pickett et al., 2013). ...
Public opinion is doubly important for reintegration, as it shapes both the policy and the stigma environments that people with criminal records must face. Nowhere are the policy and stigma environments bleaker than for record holders convicted of sex crimes. Drawing on the theory of compassion collapse (or psychic numbing) and using experimental data from a national survey, we examine the effects of informing members of the public about the hardships faced by record holders convicted of sex crimes, and we compare those effects (or the lack thereof) to the effects of victim discourse. We also randomize the information format: aggregate/statistical versus personal narratives. We find that narratives about crime victims’ suffering matter to the public—increasing aversive emotions, support for collateral consequences, and stigmatization—but narratives about record holders’ suffering do not. We conclude by discussing alternative communication strategies that public criminologists may use to garner public support for progressive criminal justice reforms.
This paper examines the influence of team formation strategy on prospective entrepreneurs’ attraction toward venturing. With the worldwide increase in entrepreneurship education, the way entrepreneurial skills such as team formation are taught influences graduates’ chances of finding entrepreneurial success from the onset. This study measures how team formation strategies affect venturing and co-founding attraction. Moreover, the paper raises awareness for educators and researchers about the role and importance of various team formation strategies in entrepreneurship education. Hypotheses are tested using data collected from 1,713 business and entrepreneurship graduates using a quasi-experimental design with vignettes. Results and implications for entrepreneurship education and research are further discussed.
How does the public respond to nonviolent resistance tactics? This survey experiment examines both approval and perceptions of legitimacy for five nonviolent tactics using a sample of American adults. We include two variations in our treatment – first examining responses to different protest tactics, then adding in the factor of co-partisanship, which we argue is a relevant identity in the US political context. In the non-partisan treatments, we find a stark dichotomy between our measures of approval and legitimacy. All nonviolent treatment tactics decrease approval for the neutral activist group using them, but three of four tactic treatments increase the probability that respondents will support our legitimacy indicators (congressional hearing invitation and media attention). We find that partisanship conditions how respondents evaluate nonviolent tactics of resistance, but not in ways we would expect based on the conventional wisdom that liberals favor ‘nonviolent resistance' while conservatives do not. Partisan alignment has a consistent effect on respondent approval of tactics in that the partisan treatment leads to disapproval of out-partisan groups across the nonviolent tactics (compared to no mention of tactic or partisanship). Surprisingly, however, this finding on co-partisanship does not extend to our measures of legitimacy. Partisanship clearly conditions the way that respondents evaluate nonviolent tactics of resistance, but not necessarily in predictable ways.
Those studying criminal justice at the undergraduate level are an important bellwether for understanding future reform efforts. If students are unwilling to acknowledge systemic issues needing reform, this suggests that reform efforts are likely to face internal opposition. The current study examines the extent to which criminal justice students acknowledge that systemic racial issues present a need for criminal justice reform. Using survey data from students at a single university, the findings reveal that students are willing to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism, although expected individual-level factors predicted variation in such acknowledgment. In addition, the current study explores the relationship between willingness to acknowledge systemic issues and general punitive attitudes. Consistent with the extant research, criminal justice students’ racialized attitudes are significantly related to more punitive crime-control preferences. These findings have implications for understanding efforts to reform criminal justice, and they raise essential questions for criminal justice educators.
Past research on crime and punishment attitudes has considered the effects of racial identity, racial animus, gender identity, and partisanship – or some combination of these factors. I focus on the role of a particular gendered emotional pathway: women’s fear of rape (FOR). Within the context of a racialized rape culture, I argue that FOR affects how women think about policing. Using Cooperative Election Study and FBI data from 2020, I explore the political determinants of FOR and how it shapes American women’s policing attitudes. Women’s fear of sexual violence is both partisan and racialized, with Republican and White women reporting the most fear. I demonstrate that White Democratic women who are more afraid of rape are more likely to feel safe around police officers, while Republican women feel safe around police regardless of their level of fear. Women who are more afraid of rape are less likely to support police reform efforts that aim to reduce police presence and militarization, or provide accountability for pas t wrongdoing. This link between FOR and support for masculinist institutions extends to attitudes on the military when its actions are framed as protectionary. The results reveal a disturbing paradox in which women who are most afraid of sexual violence are less willing to challenge state institutions that enact violence, including sexual violence.
The US judicial system is rife with racial discrimination against Black individuals at every stage. The current study aimed to examine perceptions of individuals accused of crimes and perceptions of sentencing decisions. Furthermore, we aimed to examine whether implicit and explicit racial bias would affect these perceptions. White university students (n = 157) and noncollege adults (n = 224) viewed fictitious electronic case records for Black and White target individuals convicted of a nonviolent drug crime or a violent assault crime. They rated the targets on positive and negative traits and completed measures of explicit and implicit racial bias. Findings indicated that university student participants rated the White targets more negatively and less positively than the Black targets across both crimes. The nonuniversity sample rated the Black targets more negatively than the White targets for the violent crime. On ratings of deservingness of incarceration and fairness of the sanction, participants had similar perceptions for Black and White targets. Furthermore, participants in our studies who reported greater explicit bias also evaluated the Black target less positively, more negatively, as more violent, and as more deserving of incarceration. More negative implicit bias was significantly associated with less positive evaluations of the Black target and greater endorsement that the target deserved incarceration. These findings have implications for criminal justice and judicial reform.
Switching parties is arguably the most important decision a politician will ever make. This book is the first-ever systematic study of the causes and consequences of legislative party switching in the United States. The author argues that re-election alone does not explain party switching. He proposes an ambition-based theory that accounts for multiple goals (including higher office aspirations and the desire for influence in the legislature) with a focus on the electoral costs and the institutional benefits of the decision. The book combines the statistical analysis of electoral data and legislative careers in the US Congress and state legislatures with elite interviews of party switchers, non-switchers, and a party leader. The case study of a party switcher's decision in 'real time' documents the complexity of the decision in a politician's own words prior to and following the switch. The book raises important questions regarding the meaning of a party label.
In the Global South, the urban poor are heavily policed and bear the brunt of police violence. Evidence suggests that the urban poor also support punitive policing. Why do those individuals most affected by police violence also appear to support increased police presence in their neighborhoods? Combining extensive fieldwork with a public opinion survey in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, this paper develops a theory that the urban poor support punitive policing because it reduces other forms of violence they are routinely exposed to in public spaces. Our argument contrasts with the prevalent hypothesis that support for punitive policing amongst the urban poor originates in conservative views of security provision. Because Uruguay is a least likely case for this argument, our results are highly informative. The results demonstrate the deeply unequal distribution of the lived experience of authoritarian coercive practices in an otherwise democratic context.
Researchers have investigated the race-crime congruency effect for approximately 30 years; however, extant research makes it difficult to draw conclusions about this effect due to varied operationalization, methodology, and statistical reporting. We conducted a systematic review operationalizing race-crime congruency as a crossover effect such that defendants receive harsher punishment when a crime is deemed typical of their race and less punitive punishments when a crime is deemed atypical of their race. The objective of this systematic review is to summarize the current state of the literature and provide recommendations for future research. To identify relevant studies, we searched four databases, 18 conference programs, and reference lists in identified articles. We identified 14 published and unpublished papers that examine a crossover effect of the race-crime congruency effect found in experimental research. We recommend (a) using designs capable of testing a crossover interaction (b) including dichotomous guilt as a primary dependent variable (c) pilot testing race-typical and -atypical crimes (d) identifying crimes that associate equally with target groups (e) utilizing manipulation checks to ensure appropriate comparisons across studies and (f) reporting detailed statistical information to allow future researchers to conduct meta-analyses on this topic. Overall, race-crime congruency literature has important implications for marginalized groups within the United States’ criminal justice system; therefore, researchers should work to appropriately ascertain the robustness of this effect.
This chapter presents an integrated understanding of various impression formation processes. The chapter introduces a model of impression formation that integrates social cognition research on stereotyping with traditional research on person perception. According to this model, people form impressions of others through a variety of processes that lie on a continuum reflecting the extent to that the perceiver utilizes a target's particular attributes. The continuum implies that the distinctions among these processes are matters of degree, rather than discrete shifts. The chapter examines the evidence for the five main premises of the model, it is helpful to discuss some related models that raise issues for additional consideration. The chapter discusses the research that supports each of the five basic premises, competing models, and hypotheses for further research. The chapter concludes that one of the model's fundamental purposes is to integrate diverse perspectives on impression formation, as indicated by the opening quotation. It is also designed to generate predictions about basic impression formation processes and to help generate interventions that can reduce the impact of stereotypes on impression formation.
Although traditional anti-black prejudice among whites has decreased since the 1940s, social policies designed to assist blacks continue to face opposition and controversy. Accounts have pointed to self-interest, American beliefs about inequality, or persistent negative racial attitudes as underlying causes of widespread opposition to race-targeted policies. We hypothesize that opposition hinges on the explicitness of the race-targeting and whether the policy's goal is opportunity enhancement or equality of outcomes. We also hypothesize that the influence of individuals' self-interest, beliefs about inequality, and racial attitudes on opinions differs by whether or not a policy is race-targeted and by a policy's goal. We use data from the 1990 General Social Survey to analyze opinion toward race-targeted versus income-targeted opportunity-enhancing policies and toward race-targeted versus income-targeted equal outcomes policies. Results of these analyses lend general support to our hypotheses, and in particular, underscore the influence of group self-interest and perceived discrimination on white opposition to race-targeted policy.
A random sample of adults read about one of three fictitious candidates running for governor with a photograph of either a white male, a light-complected black male, or a dark-complected black male attached. The results indicate (1) that black candidates were penalized by white voters based on the candidate's race, skin color, and individual levels of racial prejudice; (2) that voters who were racially intolerant and aware of the negative social consequences of expressing their prejudice engaged in self-monitoring (i.e., they relied on information gained from social circumstances and suppressed the reporting of their negative attitudes toward African American candidates); (3) that skin color differences in the black candidate may have generated distinct forms of cognitive processing. That is, respondents exposed to the light-complected black candidate engaged in automatic cognitive processing, while subjects assigned to the dark-skinned black condition consciously processed racial information. The political consequences of these results are discussed.
