Who Believes that the Police Use Excessive Force? Centering Racism in Research on Perceptions of the Police

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00224278221120781
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Who Believes that

the Police Use

Excessive Force?

Centering Racism

in Research on

Perceptions of the

Police

Kevin Drakulich

1

, Jesenia Robles

1

,

Eric Rodriguez-Whitney

1

,

and Cassidy Pereira

1

Abstract

Objectives: Police use of excessive—even fatal—force is a signif‌icant social

issue, one at the symbolic heart of the Black Lives Matter civil rights move-

ment. However, a substantial number of Americans—disproportionately

White—tend to minimize the prevalence of this issue. We seek to explain

differences in these views. Methods: We look at whether experiences with

the police, politics, and three measures of racial attitudes explain differ-

ences in views of the prevalence of police use of excessive force, and we

specif‌ically test for whether these factors help explain racial stratif‌ication

1

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts,

USA

Corresponding Author:

Kevin Drakulich, Schoolof Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston,

Massachusetts, USA.

Email: k.drakulich@neu.edu

Thematic Issue: Centering Race in the Study of Crime and Criminal Justice

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2023, Vol. 60(1) 112-164

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00224278221120781

journals.sagepub.com/home/jrc

in these views. Using data from three different recent national surveys col-

lected by the American National Election Studies, we attempt to replicate

our f‌indings within this paper. Results: Views of police use of force are highly

stratif‌ied by race and politics and racial attitudes—in particular racial

resentment—play an important role in explaining these differences.

Conclusions: If we hope to address this important issue, it matters that

many people minimize its existence, and it matters why they minimize it.

We argue that centering race in crime and justice research necessarily

means centering racism.

Keywords

Perceptions of police, excessive force, racial resentment, crime stereotypes

There are substantial issues with the way justice is administered in the U.S.,

and most of these issues are racially disparate; Black Americans in particular

are disproportionately likely to be exposed to the most toxic aspects of the

justice system (e.g. Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss 2007; Mauer 2011; Nix et al.

2017). For these reasons, it is important to center race in thinking about

criminal justice solutions: solutions that fail to center race may fail to

address racial inequalities and injustices.

However, simply centering race is not enough. Racial differences in mea-

sures of crime and justice outcomes have been featured prominently in

social science research since at least the progressive era (Muhammad

2010). Historically, explanations for racial differences have sometimes iden-

tif‌ied biological or cultural def‌iciencies as a cause (Rafter, Posick, and

Rocque 2016; Small, Harding, and Lamont 2010). Work that is agnostic

about the explanation for observed racial differences leave the door open

to these interpretations. For this reason, it is critical to explicitly identify

why race matters: because of racism (Graves Jr. and Goodman 2021).

Race matters to crime and justice outcomes not because of anything

intrinsic to race, but because of racism (e.g. Braga and Drakulich 2018;

Drakulich and Rodriguez-Whitney 2018). Historical and systemic racism

help explain problematic criminal justice policies and practices

(Alexander 2020; Hinton 2016; Muhammad 2010). But these structures

are maintained—and reform efforts are obstructed—by a specif‌ic racist

logic held by many Americans. This logic dismisses the historical relevance

of chattel slavery and legal segregation and discrimination as well as the

contemporary relevance of the discriminatory policies and institutions

Drakulich et al. 113

birthed from this history (Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith 1997; Bonilla-Silva

2018).

This racial logic shapes how many Americans view crime and justice

issues. Racial affect and attitudes inf‌luence support for punitive policies

and opposition to policies aimed at ameliorating economic inequalities

(Bobo and Johnson 2004; Drakulich 2015b; Johnson 2008; Unnever and

Cullen 2010). They also inf‌luence how Americans understand, in a more

basic and fundamental sense, crime and economic inequalities as issues

(e.g. Drakulich 2015a). Thus, the issue is not just that some Americans

may oppose specif‌ic criminal justice solutions, it is that many Americans

minimize, or do not even recognize that these problems exist.

1

Public perceptions of the police provide a critical case study of this issue

with particular contemporary relevance. Criminologists have been interested

in perceptions of the police since at least August Vollmer’s era (Brown and

Reed Benedict 2002:543). A series of systematic reviews of the literature—

each building off the last—identify race as an important determinant of

views of the police (Brown and Reed Benedict 2002; Decker 1985; Peck

2015), but do not mention racism as a reason why race may matter. In

other words, the literature has tended to center race but not racism.

2

By

not identifying racism directly as an explanation, the door is left open to

other explanations, including ones that problematically imply cultural def‌i-

ciencies: accusations of an anti-police sentiment that can be seen in discus-

sions of a ‘stop snitching’culture or a ‘war on cops.’A focus on racism as an

explanation for why race matters also encourages us to reframe the question:

not why Black Americans tend to be more likely to perceive problems in

policing, but why White Americans tend to have less critical views.

The value of centering racism is even more salient in the midst of sub-

stantial public attention to policing issues. The use of force—sometimes

deadly force—by police off‌icers is a core concern raised by organizers

and others in the Black Lives Matter era (Black Lives Matter n.d.;

Cobbina 2019; Lowery 2016). But, as with public opinion about other

aspects of the justice system (Gramlich 2019), Americans are likely to

differ in their views of how much of a problem the police use of excessive

force really is. This is a crucial link between public perceptions of the police

and the possibility of reform, what work on social movements describes as a

problem identif‌ication frame (Benford and Snow 2000). To understand

public opinion about the prevalence of this problem, we need to center

both race and racism—asking whether there are average racial differences

in these views, as there are for other perceptions of the police, and, critically,

asking whether there are racial differences in these views because of racism.

114 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 60(1)