How Does the Public Explain Police Misconduct? Race, Politics, and Attributions

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241253737
• Author: Amanda Graham,Justin T. Pickett,Francis T. Cullen
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2024, Vol. 51, No. 9, September 2024, 1299 –1319.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241253737

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2024 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

1299

HOW DOES THE PUBLIC EXPLAIN POLICE

MISCONDUCT?

Race, Politics, and Attributions

AMANDA GRAHAM

Texas State University

JUSTIN T. PICKETT

University at Albany, SUNY

FRANCIS T. CULLEN

University of Cincinnati

Why have public reactions to police misconduct been so polarized, and why have opposing social movements emerged in

response? This study explores attributions of police misconduct, using a myriad of possible attributions and a population-

matched national sample (N = 700), to extend our understanding of the perceived causes of police misconduct and who holds

which attributions, focusing on race, racial attitudes, and political ideology. We find that attributions could be divided into

(a) multifaceted attributions—the belief that misconduct has multiple causes; and (b) excusatory attributions—the belief that

misconduct is caused by factors external to police officers and agencies. Endorsement of these attributions stems from racial

and political attitudes, with mediation analyses finding that race plays an indirect role in endorsing attributions of police

misconduct. As such, efforts to address police misconduct face not only a political power struggle but also a racially attitu-

dinal one.

Keywords: policing; misconduct; attributions; racial resentment; race; rightward political views

Instances of police misconduct—of officers harassing, brutalizing, and even murdering

civilians—now appear regularly in the news. They are often captured on camera and

shared internationally (e.g., Buchanan et al., 2020; Eligon et al., 2021). Protest groups, such

as Black Lives Matter (BLM), have mobilized in response, arguing that officer mistreat-

ment of civilians, and Black civilians specifically, is widespread and reflects systemic rac-

ism in policing aimed at Black communities, who are “systematically and intentionally

AUTHORS’ NOTE: This study was funded by Georgia Southern University through an internal stipend of the

first author. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Amanda Graham, School of

Criminal Justice and Criminology, Texas State University, Hines Academic Center 108, 601 University Dr., San

Marcos, TX 78666; e-mail: akg79@txstate.edu.

1253737CJBXXX10.1177/00938548241253737Criminal Justice and BehaviorGraham et al. / ATTRIBUTION OF POLICE MISCONDUCT

research-article2024

1300 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR

targeted for demise” (Black Lives Matter, n.d.-b). As a result, one of this group’s key

“demands” is defunding of the police (Black Lives Matter, n.d.-a).

In response, the counter-movement Blue Lives Matter (BLUE) emerged to defend offi-

cers against perceived anti-police bias, “vilification” of law enforcement, and criticism in

the media. BLUE supporters argued that civilization requires a well-funded and strong

police force and that negative publicity of policing is counterproductive and dangerous,

producing de-policing—the so-called “Ferguson Effect” (Nix & Pickett, 2017)— as well as

violence against officers (Berg, 2020; Blue Lives Matter, 2023). Furthermore, the BLUE

position is that BLM “overlooks [the] root cause of police encounters,” that it is civilians

who are to blame for “causing issues with the police in the first place; it’s the lawbreakers!”

(Reed, 2023). In other words, BLUE advocates argue that officers are often “put in a posi-

tion where they are required to use force,” and yet society then ignores “the context behind

these incidents” and focuses only on “the skin color of the people involved” when drawing

conclusions (Berg, 2020).

Why have public reactions to police misconduct been so polarized, and why have oppos-

ing social movements emerged in response? Sociologists emphasize that “the meaning

social phenomena have for us turns crucially on how we explain or account for the observa-

tion of them” (Thompson & Bobo, 2011, p. 17). This means that what likely underlies

divergent responses to police misconduct is differing causal attributions for it. Referred to

as diagnostic framing, social movements identify a problem and provide attributions of

blame for it (Benford, 1993; Snow & Benford, 1988). A large body of scholarship has

shown that attributions play powerful roles in explaining reactions to and mobilization

against social problems, such as crime, gun violence, and mass incarceration (Drakulich,

2015; Hagan, 2010; Thompson & Bobo, 2011).

Surprisingly, however, research on attributions for police misconduct is scarce, which

poses a challenge for reform efforts to curb misconduct and for understanding the public’s

different responses to police misconduct. Still, broadly speaking, attribution theory pro-

vides a basis for hypothesizing about both the nature and correlates of such attributions.

Behavior is typically attributed either to internal (i.e., individual) or external (i.e., situa-

tional) factors (Heider, 1958; Weary, 1984; Weiner, 1985), which then supports prognostic

framing in social movements, leading to proposed “strategies, tactics, and targets” to address

the problem at hand (Benford, 1993; Snow & Benford, 1988, p. 201). In other words, the

purported causes of a social problem, which normally bifurcate into those blaming indi-

viduals and those impugning broader social processes, provide “reasonable” strategies (e.g.,

policies) that can be advocated for, as well as the emotional content necessary for collective

action (Benford & Snow, 2000; Pickett & Ryon, 2017).

In this context, our study undertakes the first systematic exploration of attributions of

police misconduct, using a myriad of possible attributions and a population-matched

national sample (N = 700). We go beyond the rare instances in which officers shoot or kill

someone (Zimring & Arsiniega, 2015), extending our understanding of the perceived causes

of police misconduct to deviant officer behavior in general. Although prior literature is

mixed on defining or classifying police misconduct (e.g., Kappeler et al., 1998; Weitzer &

Tuch, 2004), we are referring to officers engaging in deviant behavior including: profit-

motivated crimes, off-duty crimes against persons, off-duty public order crimes, drugs, on-

duty abuse, obstruction of justice, failure to perform, and conduct-related probationary

failure (see Kane & White, 2009). We also seek to understand who holds which attributions,