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Protesting While Black?- The Differential Policing of American Activism…
Protesting While Black?- The Differential Policing of American Activism
Policing of public protest events
Minority racial groups (African Americans) making political claims → threat to dominant group (whites)
Argument
: Race used by police when deciding how to respond
“Protesting while black”
African American protesters more likely to:
→ draw police presence
→be arrested
→ be subjected to force and violence
Protest policing
Threat/ Behavioral Threat Model
Focus: police- protester interactions
→ How police consider protestor behaviors
Protester activity coupled with police response to protestors
Protester activity:
--> Types/level of violence
--> Number of participants
--> Degree of organization
--> Tactics of protestors
Police response:
--> Police presence
--> Degree of violence used
--> Arrests made
Findings
: More likely for aggressive police response when protesters are:
--> Violent
--> In large numbers
--> Directly challenging political authorities
--> Organized
--> Use multiple/innovative tactics
Weakness: does not consider race
Two existing studies examining affect of protester race on police response
Police target weak minority group protests:
→ fewer resources
→ less organized
→ less authority accountability
→ less likely to retaliate
Include only a composite measure of all minority group statuses
African American Threat and Police Response:
Understanding how and who perceive African Americans as threatening
Systemic racism theory
→ “hierarchal interaction”- between oppressed and oppressor
→ threat to ideological white supremacist project
→ Whites attempt to control by using coercive tactics (e.g., torture, Jim Crow Laws)
→ sociopolitical control by police and criminal justice system
Group position/ threat and racial threat
→ Examines: Affect of the size of African American population on various criminal justice facets
→Increase in population size of African Americans correlates to increases in formal methods of social control and extra-legal forms
Formal Methods of social control:
→ amount of resources provided to the criminal justice system
→ black arrest and incarceration rates
→ African American stops and searches
→ African Americans killed by police
→ Complaints about police brutality
Extra-legal forms:
→ Attacks
→ Lynching
→ Vandalism
Ethnic competition theory
→ Examines: Affect of the size of African American population on various criminal justice facets
Research Design, Measurement, and Hypothesis
Events examined: rallies, demonstrations, marches, vigils, picketing, civil disobedience, ceremonial events, motorcades, dramaturgical, demonstrations, symbolic displays, riots, mob violence, and attacks
Data from: New York Times 1960-1990
Focus: event tactics that may draw police presence or lead to police action
3 criteria for protest event to be included:
Collective action- more than one participant
Articulated claim- grievance against or support
Event occurred in public sphere across United States
Data collection stages (2):
researchers read every page of NYT- any mention of protest events
content coding of event- multiple events coded separately
Newspaper Data
→ “methodological staple”
→most widely used data source of collective protest
→ collection of large numbers of events
→ social movements’ dynamic activities more static
Potential biases:
Selection bias
→ not all protests covered
→ unlikely to be random sample
→ events more likely to be covered: more intense events, events with conflict/significant actors, events proximate to location headquarters
description bias
→ how well/poorly reporter describes actual events
→ “hard facts”- generally accurate
Dependent variables
Focus: police presence at protest event- three different strategies of policing
making arrests
using physical force (pushing, shoving, hitting, beating) or violence (tear gas, guns)
making arrests and using force/violence
Independent variables and hypothesis
Goal: Find out if African American protest events more likely than other events to be policed?
8 variables that influence likelihood of protest policing:
size of protest- larger events= more threatening
counterdemonstrator presence (dummy variable)- presence= increased likelihood of conflict
Protestor use of extremely confrontational tactics- attacks, riots, melees
Protestor use of less confrontational tactics- demonstrations, civil disobedience
Protestors damaged property at event
Tactical variety- fewer tactics= easier to police
Protestor use of violence
If protestors directly target political authorities- more of a threat when they do
Results
In general: Police more likely to be at protestor events when protestors:
→ use violence
→ damage property
→use of multiple tactics
→ target government
→ counterdemonstrators present
→extreme confrontational tactics
NOTE:
→ protest size no significant effect on policed presence
Police response to threat variables:
→ in line with behavioral threat hypothesis
→ certain protest characteristics trigger specific police response
Protest size
→ large events most likely to do nothing
Counterdemonstrators present-
→ most likely to do nothing
→ less likely to arrest- hard to determine who to arrest
→ signals to police forceful response may be necessary
Protestor violence
→ most likely to use force/violence alone or with arrest
Use of multiple tactics
→ most likely to use force/violence alone or with arrest
FINDINGS- on African American protest events
→ African American protests more likely to be policed
→ Police more likely to use force and violence against African American protestors than to do nothing
→ most police presence in 1961-1982 (inclusive)
Protests with African Americans present police are more likely to:
→ make arrests
→ use violence/ force
→ use violence/force while making arrests
most common
**in line with “protesting while black”
Conclusions
:
→ different racial groups experienced right to protest freely unevenly from 1960-1990
→ white protestors enjoy greater privileges of protest- greater access to democratic institutions—in comparison to African American protestors/citizens
Limitations:
→ cannot discern disproportionate policing of African American protest events is due to racism of individual officers
→ results only occasionally consistent with Driving While Black literature- when controlling protester actions by behavioral threats