Kyle Treacy ’24
Perceptions and Policing: How Perceptions of Racial Inequalities Impact One’s Tolerance of Police Violence and/or Misconduct
Kyle Treacy ’24, Sociology major
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Brandon Martinez, Sociology
Oral Presentation: Wednesday, April 24, 3:36 p.m.
Racial inequality is often studied in relation to American policing and police violence, but little research explores the relationship between individual perceptions of racial inequality and views on policing. Several studies have identified important predictors of how individuals perceive racial inequality, such as political ideology, race, and age. I add to this literature by examining how one’s perceptions of racial inequality are correlated with their tolerance to police violence and misconduct. I discuss differing perceptions of racial inequality contextualized as a spectrum between structural and individualistic perceptions. Using data from the 2022 General Social Survey (GSS), I then investigate what relationships exist between these perceptions and one’s degree of tolerance to police use of force. I employ two different indicators to measure perceptions of racial inequality: attitudes towards affirmative action and an index measuring how individualistic or structural one’s perceptions are. Support for police use of force is operationalized by examining whether respondents approve of an officer striking a citizen in five different scenarios. Utilizing binary logistic regressions, I find that more individualistic perceptions of racial inequality are positively correlated with approving of an officer’s use of force when dealing with citizens in several scenarios. This holds true even when potentially spurious variables are controlled for, such as gender, race, income, education, and political views.
