NCJ Number
228401
Journal
Criminology Volume: 47 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2009 Pages: 847-888
Date Published
August 2009
Length
42 pages
Annotation
This study examined whether perceptions of racially biased policing against African-American adolescents were a function of neighborhood racial composition, net of other neighborhood- and individual-level factors.
Abstract
The main finding of the study was that neighborhood conditions were important for shaping levels of racially based discrimination experienced by African-American adolescents at the hands of the police. Specifically, significantly higher levels of perceived police-based racial discrimination in predominantly White neighborhoods that experienced African-American population growth and in neighborhoods with higher levels of affluence and higher rates of violence were found. Researchers consistently find that race is a strong predictor of perceptions of police misconduct. However, relatively little is known about whether and how experiences of police discrimination among African-American youth vary across neighborhoods or which factors might account for that variation. This study considered several dimensions of neighborhood context, which included levels of violence, socioeconomic status, and racial composition. It examined the effect of neighborhood racial composition on perceptions of police discrimination given the prominence of neighborhood racial context. It evaluated the link between neighborhood conditions and experiences of racial discrimination by the police using 2 waves of survey data from over 760 African-American adolescents, census tract data, and police crime data, providing additional insight into neighborhood-level determinants influencing African-American adolescents' perceptions of police discrimination. Tables, figures, references, and appendix