Police-Use-of-Force By Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Class

Background/Purpose: One area of community policing that has attracted national and global attention involves the relationship between police and citizen contact, namely police threat and/or use of force (PUF). Law enforcement malpractices has a profound impact on waning community trust and this loss of legitimacy makes individuals more likely to resist enforcement efforts and less likely to cooperate with police efforts to prevent and investigate crime. In addition to the recognition of the harms caused by law enforcement practices, restoring trust in policing will require identifying those who are at risk for negative law enforcement practices, so more evidenced-based approaches could be used in community policing.  Nationally, blacks ages 16 and older are two times more likely to experience the threat or use of PUF and three times more likely to perceive PUF as excessive force then their white counterparts. However, we don’t know how these disparities vary within ethnic groups by sex and income. This study examines differences within ethnic groups in self-reported accounts of individuals’ exposure to PUF during their most recent contact with police and their perception of the force used by ethnicity and level of income.    

Methods: We used data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2011 Police-Public Contact Survey, which collects information from a nationally representative sample of persons in U.S. households regarding their contact with police during a 12-month period. Analyses for this paper include individuals who identified as black or white (n = 1,375,773), and who’s most recent involuntary contact with police occurred when the person was stopped by the police while in a public place but not in a moving vehicle. Univariate and bivariate analyses were performed using chi-square.

Results: There was a statistically significant difference in exposure to PUF within each ethnic group by income and sex. Black males earning less than $20k reported higher rates of exposure to PUF and perceived the actions of the police as unnecessary and excessive. In contrast, black females earning $50k or more reported higher rates of exposure to PUF and perceived the actions of the police as unnecessary and excessive (p <.001). Different patterns of exposure and perceptions were also found among whites by sex and income. White males earning $20k-49k reported higher rates of exposure to PUF and perceived the actions of the police as unnecessary and excessive, whereas white females earning less than $20k reported higher rates of exposure to PUF and perceived the actions of the police as unnecessary and excessive (p <.001).

Conclusions and Implications: The present study furthers social work science investigations of perceptions of policing behavior and provides novel findings that should inform strategies for improving community policing. It is not only who is policed, but how they are policed that matters in establishing the credibility of police officers in communities. Future research will benefit from additional attention to the cumulative impact of PUF, how these experiences shape citizens understanding of procedural justice and what they believe procedurally just policing should look like in their communities.