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Let's "talk" about the police: the role of race and intergenerational transmission of police legitimacy attitudes in the legal socialization of youth
Dissertation   Open access

Let's "talk" about the police: the role of race and intergenerational transmission of police legitimacy attitudes in the legal socialization of youth

Keisha April
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Drexel University
Jun 2020
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00000236
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April_Keisha_20201.41 MBDownloadView
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Abstract

Juvenile justice, Administration of Race relations Black people--Study and teaching Parenting Law Enforcement Psychology
In the wake of highly publicized police shootings of unarmed Black individuals, there has been a rise in national conversations about police legitimacy. Black individuals-particularly Black youth-are less likely to trust and cooperate with the police than White individuals. The mechanism through which youth develop their attitudes toward the police is not well understood and parents may play a role in socializing their children toward the police. Research suggests that Black individuals may engage in a cultural practice called "the Talk," in which caregivers equip Black youth with knowledge to help them successfully navigate police encounters. Extant research has not established the content of these conversations, whether these conversations are unique to Black families, or whether parents' police legitimacy attitudes may play a role in the content of messages transmitted about the police. This study sought to examine: 1) latent constructs inherent in the messages parents deem important to communicate to children about the police and 2) police legitimacy attitudes as a mediator in the pathway between parent race and communications to children about police. Using data from 1056 parents in a national sample, an exploratory factor analysis revealed that parents' messages loaded on four distinct factors: Police Role, Compliance, Police Behavior, and Safety Behaviors. Using data from 948 participants who identified as White or Black, five simple mediation analyses revealed that parent race was significantly related-both directly and indirectly, through legitimacy attitudes-to the importance parents placed on communicating specific types of messages about the police. Black parents had weaker trust in the police and reported they would place greater importance on communicating messages related to distrust of the police than White parents, but parent race did not fully account for the variance in these relationships. Implications and future directions are discussed.

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