Tag: race
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The Color of Confinement: Racial Bias and Jail Populations Across America
This study builds on the body of research examining whether racial disparities in criminal justice can be attributed to bias. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether there is a relationship between aggregate levels of bias and race-specific incarceration rates in U.S. counties. With data from the Vera Institute of Justice, the…
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Justifiability and culpability in lethal self-defense: Police officers vs. civilians
Purpose Some critics argue that legal standards, even when and where equivalent, are differentially applied to officers and civilians. This study examined evaluations of justifiability and culpability for police officers versus civilians, as well as White shooters versus Black shooters, in a 2✕2 factorial experiment. It also explored how personal attitudes and characteristics correspond to…
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What Really Happened in Ferguson, and What the Country Can Learn from It
The United States found itself in the center of a heated national debate on race, policing, and justice in 2014. The shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, by a white police officer sparked outrage and protests, shedding the spotlight on Ferguson. Policing Ferguson, Policing America dives into the heart of this time, offering…
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Racial Threat and Punitive Police Attitudes
Racial Threat Theory posits that punitive attitudes are produced when Whites are alarmed by large or growing Black populations. While research has identified a relationship between Black composition and support from community members for more punitive criminal justice policy, no research has examined whether racial composition influences punitive attitudes among criminal justice personnel—even though they…
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Ethnic diversity, Ethnic Polarization, and Incarceration Rates: A Cross-national Study
Recent political rhetoric both in the U.S. and abroad has drawn renewed attention to racial and ethnic conflict, state power, and punishment. The salience of minority group conflict on incarceration is well established in theory and research in the U.S. This study explores whether racial/ethnic composition explains incarceration rates throughout the world, rather than being…
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Is it possible to find a balance between reducing unnecessary traffic stops and ensuring public safety through traffic enforcement?
American roads have become deadlier than before the pandemic, and many are attributing this to a decrease in policing after the George Floyd protests of 2020. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), the fatality rate, which is deaths per million miles traveled, is about 18% higher than in 2019. In contrast, other Western…
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Victim Age and Capital Sentencing Outcomes in North Carolina (1977–2009)
Does victim age influence influence the death penalty?
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Rape, Race, and Capital Punishment: An Enduring Cultural Legacy of Lethal Vengeance?
Historical analyses of southern statutes (i.e., Slave Codes, Black Codes, “Jim Crow,” etc.) and their enforcement reveals evidence of an enduring cultural legacy prescribing lethal vengeance to Blacks who violate White sensibilities, especially for Black males accused of sexually assaulting White females. Using a population of official data on capital murder trials in North Carolina…