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Thesis
Police Endorsement of Color-Blind Racial Beliefs and Propensity to Disproportionately Interact with Youth of Color
Master of Science (M.S.), Drexel University
Sep 2018
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/y4kw-j594
Abstract
Police are often the point of first contact between youth and the justice system, and officers' beliefs may help explain disproportionate minority contact between police and youth of color. Color-blind racial beliefs a form of implicit racism in which racial differences are denied, are more strongly endorsed by police than laypeople. The current study examined the influence of youth race, offense severity, and police officers' color-blind racial beliefs on officers' reported likelihood of interacting with youth. Police officers (N = 339) participated in an anonymous online study which utilized a 2 (youth race) x 3 (offense severity) experimental design, however following attrition only data from 128 officers were included in the analyses. This study explored the role of youth race (White, Black) and the severity of a youth's offense (minor, moderate, serious) on officers' reported likelihood of interacting with a youth and whether officers' endorsement of color-blind racial beliefs moderated this relationship. Participants read one of six youth offense vignettes about a hypothetical youth engaging in an activity of varying seriousness and responded to four questions related to how likely the officer would be to interact with that youth. Participants also completed the Color-blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS) (Neville et al., 2000), a measure of endorsement of color-blind racial beliefs. Officers reported average endorsement of color-blind beliefs and reported that they would be moderately likely to interact with youth, across vignette conditions. A hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis revealed that officers with low levels of color-blind racial beliefs were less likely to interact with Black youth. Attrition analyses indicated that officers who did not complete the measure of color-blind beliefs may have been more likely to drop out of the study after being assigned to the Black youth condition. Policy and practice implications will be discussed, with a focus on promoting greater discussion of color-blind ideologies in multicultural trainings for police officers and increasing frank discussions about race and racial issues.
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Details
- Title
- Police Endorsement of Color-Blind Racial Beliefs and Propensity to Disproportionately Interact with Youth of Color
- Creators
- Keisha April - DU
- Contributors
- Naomi E. Goldstein (Advisor) - Drexel University (1970-)
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Science (M.S.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- ix, 54 pages
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences (Psychology); College of Arts and Sciences; Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 8844; 991014632926504721