Racial Resentment and Attitudes Toward the Use of Force by Police: An Over-Time Trend Analysis

摘要

On the heels of recent police shootings of an unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, and the death of Freddy Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, that stoked racial tensions, this article examines how beliefs about race and racial inequality influence whites' attitudes toward the use of force by the police since the mid-1980s. Our main dependent measure is a composite index ("Police Force Index") constructed from four survey items from the 1986-2012 National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey (GSS). Results show that (1) beliefs about race do indeed significantly predict whites' attitudes toward police use of force, and more importantly, (2) this effect has remained constant since the mid-1980s. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings and suggestions for future research.