Race and Policing in America: Conflict and Reform

by Ronald Weitzer , Steven A. Tuch

• ISBN13: 9780521616911
• ISBN10: 0521616913
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Race and Policing in America is about relations between police and citizens, with a focus on racial differences. It utilizes both the authors' own research and other studies to examine Americans' opinions, preferences, and personal experiences regarding the police. Guided by group-position theory and using both existing studies and the authors' own quantitative and qualitative data (from a nationally representative survey of whites, blacks, and Hispanics), this book examines the roles of personal experience, knowledge of others' experiences (vicarious experience), mass media reporting on the police, and neighborhood conditions (including crime and socioeconomic disadvantage) in structuring citizen views in four major areas: overall satisfaction with police in one's city and neighborhood, perceptions of several types of police misconduct, perceptions of police racial bias and discrimination, and evaluations of and support for a large number of reforms in policing.

Author Biography

Ronald Weitzer is professor of sociology at George Washington University Steven A. Tuch is professor of sociology and of public policy and public administration at George Washington University

Table of Contents

1. Police-minority relations in America

2. Police misconduct

3. Racially biased policing

4. Reforming the police

5. Conclusion: the continuing racial divide.