Group Threat Theory

Improved Essays
The current study sought to expand the existing victim blame literature by investigating the effect of moral intuitions on blame attribution; specifically whether those who endorse the moral foundation of authority attributed increased blame to victims of police brutality. Within the current study’s liberal sample, authority endorsement scores did not explain a significant proportion of the variance in either victim blame scores, or police blame scores. However, blame attribution varied significantly depending on whether the victim was an in-group member or an out-group member, with greater blame attributed to out-group victims. The results regarding the effect of victim group size were equivocal. Victim blame did not differ as a function of …show more content…
A group threat perspective predicts that perceived threat is a function of economic conditions and the size of the subordinate group relative to the dominant group (Blalock, 1967; Schlueter & Davidov, 2013). Initial evidence in support of this model at the aggregate level of the city or county has associated an increase in minority population with increased attacks on minority groups (Green et al., 1998), higher negative attitudes towards minorities (Taylor, 1998). King and Wheelock (2007) provided the first demonstration that these area level associations are mediated by individuals’ perception of threat. Amongst white American’s changes in areas with an increasing African American population, African Americans were associated with threats to public safety and disorder, which were associated in turn with punitive attitudes (King & Wheelock, …show more content…
Such identity relevant information may be derived from instrumental judgements of the police. An instrumental perspective suggests that when the police do effectively protect particular communities, and when outcomes (e.g. quality of service, availability of aid) are not equally distributed, these communities may come to feel isolated from the wider social group that the police represent (Fagan & Davies, 2000). Aggressive police practices such as ‘stop-and-frisk’ (as well as physical abuse have frequently targeted Black individuals concentrated in areas of poverty, high crime, and physical disorder (Fagan & Davies, 2000). The perception of being ‘over-policed’ and ‘under-protected’, has led to sense of social exclusion among many Black individuals (Parmar,

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Racial bias or racial tendencies become apart of society when the only image of a criminal is African American. A fundamental component of racial profiling is the targeted application of law enforcement resources to communities of color when whites engage in similar behaviors but do not receive similar scrutiny (Glover, 2009, p.93). Unconscious bias is active even when law enforcement tries not to discriminate because of their racial…

    • 1996 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Police Racism Case Study

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In these situations, it’s the police officers recollection versus the alleged perpetrators word and what’s at stake is the accused’s freedom, personal records, and most importantly their life in questionable situations like that of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. Because of these huge stakes, the allegation of police brutality has turned into a major social issue with an emphasis on race and lack of attention on the power of authority. Police racism is being highly publicized, with questions arising about why these people with discriminative views are in these authoritative positions. Interestingly, it has been found that “police racism mirrors the racism of the working and middle classes which the majority of officers are recruited from, which explains the low levels of variation in racial prejudice between the public and officers” (Cockcroft,2012, P. 76). Therefore, this is a more large scale problem that’s roots lie in societal…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Modern day America racial profiling has become a major issue. According to Higgins (2008), profiling is a conglomeration of physical, behavioral, and psychological components that increase the probability of apprehending a suspect. During the 1980s, law enforcement began introducing race as a trait for profiling an individual. This was during the rise of drug use in the United States. Racial profiling allowed law enforcement officials to identify drug couriers.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When examining policing in terms of race, it is imperative to understand that race and racism is a social construct, the values given to these categories stem from society’s expectations. Racism is so pervasive in the history of the United States that it has been able to adapt and dig deeper into the changing social ideologies to the point where it is covert and implicit instead of intentional. As a result of its pervasiveness, legislation that is facially neutral has a disproportionate effect on racial minorities which leads to more contact with the police than their white counterparts. Communities of color tend to be less trusting of police and are more likely to feel as targets due to effect race has on policing practices (Schlosser, Cha-Jua, Valgoi, & Helen, 2015). Areas that suffer from severe racial isolation and poverty report to have more instances of crime therefore, have a higher police presence.…

    • 1470 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Radical Policing In Canada

    • 1730 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Policing in Canada has progressed since the Code of Hammurabi in 1200 BC. The first police force was founded, and organized by Sir Robert Peel, where he came up with nine principles that police officers should follow (Griffiths, 2015). One of these principles were that “police [should] maintain public favour by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service, not by catering to public opinion” (Griffiths, 2015, p. 29). As a result, police officers should not be affected by the opinions of the power groups or the government. However, this is not the case.…

    • 1730 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Also, there is an extended history in the United States between people of color and police brutality (Martensen, Pg.219). This causes friction between the people in these communities and the law enforcement and provides a ‘social distance’(Martense, pg. 219). There is a lack of trust between the people in these disadvantaged communities and the law enforcement which leads to them being less likely to go to the police when something occurs and also are hesitant to cooperate with them (Martense, pg. 219). For these, and some other reasons, came about the “don 't snitch norm”, which criminalizes the whole community (Crutchfield, Weeks, pg.47). Without the law enforcement and other governmental agencies on these disadvantaged communities side, this leads to ‘social disorganization” which leads to a lack of a sense of togetherness within the community and networks needed in order to fight the oppression the community faces (Martensen, pg 219).…

    • 1562 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The article, “Race, Street Life, and Policing: Implications for Racial Profiling” explains how some of the police’s attention is triggered by criminal behavior or by a biased outlook (Hayle, Wortley, & Tanner, 2016). There was a research that was done that examined two populations. These populations were street youth and black high school students. From these two populations, the black high school students were disproportionate stopped and searched by the police (Hayle, Wortley, & Tanner, 2016). This is overall imperative because it clarifies how there is a greater importance in minority rather than criminal behavior itself.…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On the contrary, The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer’s use of force and explodes the concept of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department (Mac Donald, 2016). Mac Donald gives voice so the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing.…

    • 146 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Racial Profiling Essay

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages

    According to Brent Staples, an African American author of the narrative “Black men and Public Spaces: Just Walk By,” understands what it means to be erroneously profiled when he describes his experience, “women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence. Yet these truths are no solace against the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect, against being set apart, a fearsome entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact” (¶ 6). It saddens me to know that people such as Staples must cope with discrimination and be victims of racial profiling when they have not carried out any nefarious act. Racial profiling overtly defies the frequently used phrase “Don’t judge a book by its…

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Intergroup Attack Theory

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the New York Times article “A Social Reflex: Police and Blacks, Seeing Threat, Close Ranks” Amanda Taub discusses the “intergroup threat theory” as well as how conflicts effects group dynamics such as group cohesion and what she describes as “out-group hate” (Taub, Amanda.) Going in sync with the article, Taub talks about how threats, whether its focused on single members or the entire group as a whole, changes the behaviors of the people who identify with said group. These conflicts can range from actual violence directed towards the group to just changes to the infrastructure on the group. These threats however, can also rise “out group hate” or a prejudice towards other groups. In the article Taub uses the example of police shootings…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Black Cities/White Cities: Evaluating the Police.” Political Behavior 26.1 (2004): 45-68. In this journal article, the authors attempt to analyze the points of view of both African-Americans and White-Americans on the issue of police and racial disparities in shooting. In order to gather information for the study, the authors sampled four cities; two predominantly black and two predominantly white (Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, Charlotte). The study was based on the social dominance theory which asserts that societies are organized around dominant and subordinate social clusters differentiated by the amount of power, wealth and statuses possessed.…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The finding that authority valuation did not affect blame attribution, stands in contrast to conservative public and media reactions to cases of police brutality. Following the infamous McKinney Pool Incident in which police officer Eric Casebolt manhandled and drew his gun on a group of black teenagers, some Fox Media employees justified the actions of officer Casebolt by emphasising the teenagers’ lack of deference. One newsreader asked “What is the world are police… supposed to do when people who don’t respect the law… refuse to obey?” (cited in Bishop, 2015, para. 6). However, when one considers the proposed evolutionary function of the authority moral foundation, it is not surprising that its specific effect on blame attribution should…

    • 242 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Police Legitimacy

    • 1689 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Thus, unsurprisingly, Murphy and Cherney (2012) found that often ethnic miniorities fail to believe that the police are legitimate because the laws they enforce, are often directed at these ethnic minorities. Jackson and Bradford (2009) identify that for ethnic minorities the police represent oppression, unfair priorities of a dominant social order and an interfering state. As often individuals deemed as part of the respectable society, call for policing responses to focus on low level disorder, and thus, are as a result calling for attention to be focussed on these specific ethnic groups (Taylor 1999; Jackson and Bradford 2014). In these cases, the police’s attempt to implement the full enforcement of the law can fail to increase the legitimacy of the police (Harkin 2015), such as the practice of thorough stop and searches in Brixton. However, importantly, this does not affect the authority the police have to enforce these…

    • 1689 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the first place, it discussed two absolutely opposite researches on whether the police tend to target special ethnic groups such as African Americans. One research conducted by Brunson and Miller (2006) put forward the hypothesis that the minorities are more subjected to police violence, while Reiss’ studies (1968; 1971; 1980) argued that white men happen to be victims of police aggression more often than individuals of other races. However, the latter added that the victims tend to be from low socio-economic class. Thus, it supports the idea that unjustified excessive force is very often directed toward a certain group of people such as racial minorities or poor males. Moreover, other articles provided more broad explanation of the factors that induce law enforcement officers use this force.…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1.Ethical Problems in law enforcement Us versus Them Let’s understand what are ethics, ethical problem could be a circumstance in which the police officer is unsure of the proper or right action to take, or the action is right however the police officer found it difficult to do. A circumstance where you have taken the wrong action because in was enticing. There are several ethical problems the police officer faces in the community, here we will be discussing ’us verse them”. It appears that through the media many police officers have that “Us versus them” attitude while the communities are more and more fearful their actions, and thus this us versus them attitude is currently widespread in most African American neighborhoods. When law enforcement…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays