race police police use of force police legitimacy procedural justice police brutality
Abstract:
This thesis explores how three primary variables (Race of the Police Officer, Race of the Suspect, and Level of Suspect Resistance) in vignette experiments affects college students’ perceptions of legitimacy in police use of force incidents. The study is a 2 x 2 x 3 subject experiment design as there are two levels for Race of the Police Officer (Black and White), two levels for Race of the Suspect (Black and White) and three levels for Suspect Resistance (Unarmed, Knife and Gun). The dependent variable is the college students’ perception of legitimacy measured through questions of justification about the police officer’s use of force. The participants in this study were 373 undergraduate students from four introductory-level criminology classes at The Pennsylvania State University. The findings demonstrate that suspect resistance is significant in predicting perceptions of legitimacy in police use of force incidents while suspect and officer race are not significant. Respondents that are males, from rural hometowns, multiracial, and have positive attitudes of police were more likely to perceive officer use of force as legitimate in all vignette scenarios. The implications of these findings for police-community relations and police use of force policies are discussed.
