Strike More, Spend Less?: The Correlation between Opinions on Race Specific Government Spending and Feelings towards Police Use of Force

Abstract

With the foundation of past research on the relationship between indicators of racial prejudice, police use of force and attitudes towards it, I use the General Social Survey (2016) to examine the relationship between feelings on government spending on the Black community and approval of police officers striking an adult male citizen under different circumstances. Using feelings towards government spending on the Black community as an independent variable enables me to interpret the coded and implicit anti-Black sentiments within police practices and approval towards them further. After analyzing a sample of 704 respondents, I found that those who believe that the government is spending too much on the Black community are more likely to approve of a police officer striking an adult male citizen under various circumstances. However, the results of the bivariate correlation and multivariate regression consistently demonstrate that the race of the respondent had the largest effect on respondent's approval of police officers striking citizens, with white respondents being more likely to approve of officers striking citizens under more conditions. These results are consistent with critical race theory, group threat theory and past research; it is pivotal in understanding how color-blind racism effects the extent to which police are held accountable for their actions.