Understanding the Relationship Between Racial Prejudice and Support for the Death Penalty: The Racist Punitive Bias Hypothesis

Abstract

Many studies have shown that there are significant racial disparities in the application of death penalties. In this paper, three studies (N = 484, 94% female), conducted in France, test and explore why racial prejudice and support for the death penalty (SDP) are strongly and positively related. First, prejudice against Arabs remains a significant predictor of SDP, even when ethnocentrism/authoritarianism (Study 1) and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Study 2) are statistically controlled. Second, the attribution of criminal traits to Arabs (Study 1) or criminality-based prejudice (Studies 2 and 3) significantly mediates the relationship between racial prejudice and SDP. Finally, a path analysis illustrates that two relatively independent processes could explain the relationship between prejudice towards Arabs and SDP: criminality-based prejudice leading to specific SDP for Arabs and Social Dominance Orientation (Study 3). Together, these results provide support for the racist punitive bias hypothesis. When racist people think about questions of crime and punishment, they frame the issue in racial terms, leading them to support a punitive law which in their minds will mainly punish minority racial groups.

“Not One of Us”

“…Given that SDO and RWA are known to have well-established and strong relationships to punitiveness and militarism via mechanisms unrelated to the ascription of ingroup characteristics (e.g., Cohrs, Moschner, Maes, & Kielmann, 2005;Dambrun, 2007), we expected any indirect effects through Whiteness to be relatively weak. Indeed, using Hayes' (2013) PROCESS macro, and controlling for all other variables, we found that Whiteness was a weak but significant mediator of the effects of SDO on each of harsh treatment (standardized indirect effect = .05; unstandardized indirect effect = .03, 95% CI = [.01, .06]) and militaristic counter-terrorism In sum, we observed strong support for our hypotheses: RWA and SDO each had significant and unique effects on the ascription of ingroup characteristics (i.e., Whiteness) to the Tsarnaev brothers-racially ambiguous targets suspected of committing a hugely norm-violating and reviled act, and thus posing a threat to group status and conformity.…”

Prejudice in the police: On the processes underlying the effects of selection and group socialisation

“…Four measures of prejudice were included: An eight-item scale of prejudice towards Arabs (Dambrun, 2007;a ¼ .78), 3 a six-item scale of prejudice towards prisoners (Bégin & Couture, 1980; a ¼ .70), a six-item scale of prejudice towards the poor (De Oliveira & Dambrun, 2007;a ¼ .59) and a new scale of prejudice towards Gypsies that we developed for this study (a ¼ .86). This last scale was composed of eight items: Four items had negative valences (e.g.…”

Racism and white death penalty support

“…The results of Dambrun's (2007) study suggest that right-wing authoritarianism does not explain the relationship between racial prejudice and death penalty support. The author used the right-wing authoritarianism scale composed by Altemeyer (1988), which is believed to be a better measure of authoritarianism, in this study.…”

“…In a series of three studies, Dambrun (2007), using path and regression analyses, tested whether racially prejudiced individuals support the death penalty as a means of punishing minority individuals who are perceived as being criminals and whether controlling for right-wing authoritarianism would affect the relationship between racial prejudice and death penalty support. Seven-point Likert scales were used to measure death penalty support, overall evaluation of Arab and black people (racial prejudice), and criminal traits attribution.…”