After the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, public protests (both peaceful and violent) became widespread and heavily covered in the media. The nation also saw increased discussion about the intervention and involvement of police at these protests. New research, published in Criminology, shows that support for the policing of protests is higher when the protest instills fear in the public and among those who feel threatened by changes to the racial status quo in America.
Americans generally support protesting as a civil liberty and agree that protesting is an effective strategy to support the goals of the Black community in America. However, public fear can drive support for the exchange of certain civil liberties for perceived security, which is evidenced by research showing peaceful protests are seen as more legitimate and morally effective compared to disruptive or violent protests.
Experimental research conducted before George Floyd’s killing showed that disruptive and unlawful protest tactics increased people’s perceived threat of the protest and increased support for repressive policing tactics (e.g., arresting the protestors). Thus, study authors Christi Metcalfe and Justin T. Pickett were interested in how fear of the protestors might influence this support for repressive policing now in the wake of increased protests and attention toward policing.
Metcalfe and Pickett also thought support for repressive policing might be driven by racial resentment, which is a resistance to changing the racial status quo based on a feeling that the success of Black Americans violates traditional American values.
“Racial resentment is one of the most consistent and strongest predictors of attitudes about crime policies, which makes theoretical sense given that the criminal justice system has long provided an infrastructure for maintaining racial dominance and a means for pushing back on civil rights progress,” the researchers wrote. Specifically, racial resentment is associated with pro-policing attitudes, greater support for law enforcement spending, and support for aggressive policing.
In a survey fielded by YouGov, researchers recruited a sample of 1,000 American adults in October 2020 to examine the relationship between public fear, support for repressive policing, and racial resentment. All participants read a story describing a protest scenario. Researchers manipulated and randomized six characteristics about the scenario (type/goals, duration, size, impact on traffic, weapon presence, and level of violence/property damage) for a total of 256 different versions of the story.
Three of the depicted protest goals were racialized (pro-immigrant, pro-Black Lives Matter, pro-confederacy) and the fourth was not (anti-social distancing). Participants then were asked how afraid they would be if the protest was happening in their community (“fear of protesters”) and the degree to which they support police intervention (“support for police control”). Racial resentment was measured by having participants rate their level of agreement with items such as: “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if Blacks would only try harder, they would be just as well off as Whites.”
Only 17% of participants supported shutting the protest down entirely. The most repressive police tactics (arresting protesters and using non-lethal force) received the least amount of support from participants. The only tactic that most participants supported was controlling the protest boundaries, which was the least repressive.
Fear was important factor in this pattern. “Fearful respondents were significantly more supportive of sending riot officers to control the protest, establishing a border around the protest, using non-lethal force against the protesters, and arresting the protesters,” wrote the study authors.
Results show that racial resentment is not associated with fear of protestors but was strongly associated with support for protest policing. In general, people who were more racially resentful were much more likely to support protest policing. A notable attribute of this relationship is that racially resentful participants were not significantly more fearful of protesters than less resentful participants. Put another way, the effects of racial resentment may operate independently of public fear.
“Compared to pro-confederate protests, and controlling for protesters’ weapon possession and behavior, pro-immigration protests increased predicted support for police control of protesters among those high in racial resentment.” Results showed these effects were even larger for pro-BLM protests.
One of the most important limitations to this research is in the interpretation of the racial resentment findings. Racial resentment cannot be manipulated or randomized so its effects on support for protest policing are purely observational. In other words, it is impossible to tell from this data alone whether racial resentment causes a support for protest policing (or vice versa).
“We found that respondents were generally not afraid of protesters and supported more supervisory, rather than repressive, protest policing,” concluded the researchers. “Our study suggests that part of the explanation is likely increased fear, and that it is not just violence that has this effect, but also disruption, dangerousness, and property damage.”
The study, “Public fear of protesters and support for protest policing: An experimental test of two theoretical models“, was published October 13, 2021.