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Public Perceptions of the Police: Race, Socioeconomic Status, and their Interaction

Presentation Type

Oral Presentation

Abstract

Public perceptions of the police have been of interest to social researchers and criminal justice agencies since the police force was created. Through secondary analysis of public perceptions of the police and police behaviors measured on the Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS) PPCS 2015, this study expands our understanding of how race, socioeconomic status (SES), and the interaction between race and SES impact public perceptions of the police. Findings from this study show race and socioeconomic status are both significant for increasing the odds of police-citizen interactions and negative perceptions of the police. Interestingly, SES has a stronger influence overall in this sample, and the interaction term suggests a more complicated association between race, SES, and perceptions of the police. The predicted probabilities for perceptions of the police by race and SES varied across income levels and was significant at the .05 level.

Start Date

13-4-2021 11:00 AM

End Date

13-4-2021 12:00 PM

Faculty Advisor

Ashleigh Kysar-Moon

Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology

Student Type

Undergraduate Student

Comments

Award: CSBS Spring 2021 Fruehling Undergraduate Research Fellowship

This entry was part of the following session of the event:

  • Session title: Social Issues & Political Perspectives; Tuesday, April 13, 2021; 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.; Moderator: Matthew Bunker.

Electronic copy is not available through UNI ScholarWorks.

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Apr 13th, 11:00 AM Apr 13th, 12:00 PM

Public Perceptions of the Police: Race, Socioeconomic Status, and their Interaction

Public perceptions of the police have been of interest to social researchers and criminal justice agencies since the police force was created. Through secondary analysis of public perceptions of the police and police behaviors measured on the Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS) PPCS 2015, this study expands our understanding of how race, socioeconomic status (SES), and the interaction between race and SES impact public perceptions of the police. Findings from this study show race and socioeconomic status are both significant for increasing the odds of police-citizen interactions and negative perceptions of the police. Interestingly, SES has a stronger influence overall in this sample, and the interaction term suggests a more complicated association between race, SES, and perceptions of the police. The predicted probabilities for perceptions of the police by race and SES varied across income levels and was significant at the .05 level.