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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Women Crim Justice. 2020 Mar 26;31(5):360–375. doi: 10.1080/08974454.2020.1741489

“Some are good, some are bad”: Perceptions of the Police from Black and Latina Women Living in the San Francisco Bay Area

Ida Wilson a, Tamar MJ Antin a, Geoffrey Hunt b
PMCID: PMC8654324  NIHMSID: NIHMS1598059  PMID: 34898849

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, several high-profile cases involving the deadly use of force on men and boys of color have raised concerns about police interactions with people of color (Embrick, 2015; Cooper and Fullilove, 2015). These cases were well publicized and clustered in a relatively short time span, ultimately shaking public confidence and sparking intense debate about police practices (Weitzer, 2017). Such incidences have highlighted systemic racism and the harmful effects of racial profiling, and consolidated the view that young men of color are “the primary targets of negative police experiences” (Brunson and Miller 2006:532). In light of numerous highly publicized accounts of police brutality involving young men of color, Sandra Bland’s controversial traffic stop in 2015, which resulted in her experiencing verbal and physical abuse by an officer in Texas, was one of relatively few cases involving a woman of color that managed to garner national attention (Ritchie, 2017). Bland’s case was seemingly unusual, as the adverse police encounter involved a black woman, as opposed to the usual, male target (Ritchie 2017:10). In addition to the highly controversial traffic stop, Bland’s mysterious death while in police custody, also contributed to the heightened debate about police brutality against people of color in theUnited States (Scott, 2020)1. Moreover, her experience of police brutality during a routine traffic stop emphasized the importance of highlighting and examining women of color’s experiences with unjust police practices.

While the nationally publicized focus on young boys and men of color and the police is critically important and understandable given the deadly consequences of recent police violence, one unintended consequence is that it has tended to overshadow the importance of examining police interactions with girls and women of color (Embrick, 2015). As Rice (1990) has noted, the continued focus on men of color has left a gap in research which she refers to as the “other dark figure of crime” whereby women of color remain invisible in criminology studies (1990:58), a point aptly captured in the title of Andrea Richie’s recent book (2017) “Invisible No More” on police violence towards women of color. Research on girls and women of color and their perceptions of the police, with some notable exceptions (Brunson and Miller, 2006; Gabbidon et al., 2011; Fine et al., 2003; Hurst et al., 2005; Rengifo and McCallin, 2017; Ritchie, 2017), has been largely under-developed. Furthermore, many of the theoretical models that have been used to explain patterns of discriminatory policing practices and their relationship to citizens’ perspectives on the police tend to “display a presumption of gender neutrality or an uncritical focus on men” (Brunson and Miller 2006:533). Against this backdrop of neglect, the aim of this paper is to examine the perceptions of young women of color concerning the police and to assess the ways in which these perceptions may be influenced by actual encounters and experiences with law enforcement officers, as well as more generally influenced by vicarious experiences.

DETERMINANTS OF CITIZENS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE POLICE

Race/Ethnicity

Researchers have consistently found that race is a salient factor that shapes citizens’ perceptions of and satisfaction with the police (Wu, 2014; Weitzer and Tuch, 1999; Reisig and Parks, 2000; Brown and Benedict, 2002; Jacob, 1971), asserting that people of color tend to hold more negative views of police in comparison with white citizens (Brown and Benedict, 2002; Weitzer and Tuch, 2009; Cochran and Warren, 2012; Wu, 2014; Peck, 2015). Existing research has found that black citizens in particular are more likely to hold unfavorable views of police (Ekins, 2016; Peck, 2015; Brunson and Weitzer 2009, Brown and Benedict, 2002). Black citizens’ unfavorable views may be attributed to the fact that they are more likely to report negative encounters with police (Fine et al., 2003; Brunson and Miller, 2006; Gabbidon et al., 2011; Russell-Brown, 2009; Ekins, 2016) such as being treated disrespectfully during an encounter with an officer (Weitzer and Tuch, 1999, 2002) and are more likely to report distress after having an encounter with a police officer (Bordua and Tifft, 1971).

Existing research on people of color has largely focused on the experiences of black citizens (Wu, 2014; Gabbidon et al., 2011, Brunson, 2007; Brunson and Miller, 2006). However, research on Latinos’ perceptions of and experiences with police is growing, suggesting that Latinos are another ethnic/racial group who are likely to hold unfavorable views of the police. Researchers have found that Latinos’ perceptions of police are more favorable than the views of black citizens, but less favorable than the views of white citizens (Wu, 2014; Lai and Zhou, 2010; Shuck and Rosenbaum, 2005; Weitzer, 2002; Cheurprakobkit, 2000). Such views are likely due to Latinos receiving disproportionate attention from the police, evidenced in their overrepresentation in police stops (Fagan and Davies, 2000; Walker, 2001), increased likelihood of experiencing multiple contacts with police (Davis et al., 2018), and widespread belief that they experience racial profiling during encounters with officers (Reitzel, 2004). Although some researchers have found that Latinos’ views are less favorable than white citizens but more favorable than black citizens, other researchers have found that Latino immigrants tend to hold more favorable views of the police when compared to non-immigrant Latinos (Correia, 2010), suggesting that levels of acculturation, as well as immigrants’ views of police from their native countries are likely to be influential factors in shaping their perspectives (Correia, 2010; Menjivar and Bejarano, 2004).

To explain differences among racial groups’ perceptions of the police (Weitzer and Tuch, 2004; Wu, 2009, 2014), researchers have relied on Blumer’s (1958) group-position theory. Expanding upon this theory, researchers theorize that white citizens are more likely to hold favorable views of police because they perceive the institution as a resource to which they are entitled and they are inclined to form an “affinity” towards institutions that protect their interests (Weitzer and Tuch 2004: 306; Wu et al., 2009; Wu, 2014). Conversely, black and Latino citizens’ unfavorable views of police may likely be due to the fact that members of these racial/ethnic groups are likely to view the police as a “visible sign of majority domination” (Bayley and Mendelsohn 1969:195; Weitzer and Tuch 2004: 306), and that the police further contribute to their subordination in society through legal (i.e. policing) practices (Weitzer and Tuch 2004: 306). Moreover, differences in perceptions of the police among people of color and white citizens may also be due to disparate treatment from officers. For instance, Weitzer (2000) surveyed residents from three neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. to examine citizens’ perceptions of racialized policing and found a widespread belief among participants that black citizens were treated worse than white citizens (Weitzer 2000:151). While researchers have sought to explain differences among racial groups’ views of the police, the role of gender has not been foregrounded in these studies.

Gender

A small number of studies have examined gender and its impact on citizens’ perceptions of the police; however, the literature reveals inconsistent findings (Brown and Benedict, 2002). Some researchers found that women hold more favorable views of the police in comparison with men (Cao et al., 1996; Reisig and Correia, 1997; Cheurprakobkit, 2000; Lai and Zhou, 2010), to which researchers theorized that their favorable views are due to the fact that they are less susceptible to having antagonistic encounters with officers in comparison with men (Cao et al. 1996:14; Brown and Benedict, 2002). On the other hand, findings from other studies suggest that gender has no effect on citizens’ perceptions of the police (Brandl et al., 1994; Sims et al., 2002; Ren et al., 2005). The inconsistent findings in assessing the role of gender in shaping citizens perceptions of the police can be attributed to the fact that these studies fail to investigate the ways in which dimensions of women’s identities, such as race and gender, have an effect on their perceptions. Instead, these studies view the experiences of women as homogenous.

Race and Gender

While existing research yields inconsistent findings in examining the role of gender in shaping citizens’ perceptions of the police, relatively few studies have focused on the intersections of gender and race. An early exception is Fine and Weis (1998) in their investigation of urban residents’ perceptions of crime and violence, where the researchers discovered that concerns about crime, violence and views of the police differed by participants’ race and gender. Black and Latino/a men and women in the study regarded police officers as violent and corrupt and reported that they did not trust the police in contrast to white male participants. Although focusing on the experiences of youth and not adults, another example is the work of Brunson and Miller (2006) in their investigation of the ways in which gender shaped black youth’s experiences with and perceptions of the police in their neighborhoods in St. Louis, Missouri. The researchers found that the girls and boys in the study tended to speak unfavorably about the police due to experiencing negative interactions; however, the participants’ experiences with the police differed by gender. The girls in the study reported to be pessimistic about police officers’ ability to protect the community due to officers’ failure to respond to victims of crime in the neighborhood and reported negative encounters with police such as being stopped for curfew violations, whereas as the boys in the study reported to experiencing aggressive encounters with the police such as being subjected to searches and having antagonistic language directed towards them (Brunson and Miller, 2006). Given the fact that very few studies have focused on the dimensions of gender and race in shaping citizens’ views of the police, more research is needed to examine the ways in which these identities intersect and shape the experiences that women of color have with law enforcement officers.

Personal and Vicarious Experiences

Existing research has also demonstrated that citizens’ personal or direct experiences with police as well as treatment by an officer during an encounter affect their views of the police (Dean, 1980; Scaglion and Condon, 1980; Weitzer and Tuch, 1999; Weitzer, 2002; Wortley et al., 1997; Bordua and Tiff, 1971). For instance, an early study examining the extent to which citizens’ opinions about police services are influenced by contacts with police found that citizens, who had unfavorable contacts with the police, tended to have a lower rating of the police compared with those with more favorable encounters (Dean 1980:466). Similarly, in their study of citizens’ attitudes toward the police and police services in neighborhoods in Pennsylvania, Scaglion and Codon (1980) found that citizens’ personal contact with the police influenced their satisfaction with the police, asserting that personal contacts was a significant determinant of citizens’ overall attitudes toward the police. The researchers also noted that participants who had informal contacts with the police (e.g. asking for directions) and perceived the officers to be courteous during their interactions tended to have more satisfactory views of the police in contrast to participants who did not have such encounters (1980: 488).

In addition to examining direct experiences with police, researchers have investigated the extent to which indirect or vicarious experiences with police influence citizens’ views, asserting that direct experiences are not the only influential factor in shaping citizens’ perceptions of the police (Jacob, 1971; Smith and Hawkins, 1973; Koenig, 1980; Son et al., 1997; Harris, 2002) For instance, in an earlier study that sought to examine citizen’s perceptions of justice by examining citizens’ expectations and perceptions of judges and police officers in Wisconsin, Jacob (1971) discovered that the black participants in the study held unfavorable views of the police in spite of not reporting unsatisfactory encounters, theorizing that these views may have been a reflection of indirect experiences from friends or family members (1971: 81). Other researchers found that citizens who witness forms of police misconduct tend to have more negative views of the police (Smith and Hawkins 1973: 141; Koenig, 1980: 246).

CURRENT STUDY

While there is a substantial amount of research that has investigated citizens’ perceptions of the police, there is only a limited body of research that specifically examines the views of women of color. As such, this exploratory study is intersectionally-informed in order to specifically consider how the dimensions of gender and race/ethnicity combine to shape women’s experiences with the police, differentiating them from both men of color and women. An intersectional perspective allows for the understanding of “what is created and experienced at the intersection of two or more axes” of identity (Hankivsky & Christoffersen, 2008 and see Crenshaw, 1991 for more extensive review), and highlight the ways in which intersections of multiple social identities can exacerbate inequities for some individuals (Crenshaw, 1991; Hankivsky & Christoffersen, 2008). Moreover, additional research is needed that examines the specific experiences of women of color with the police in order to remove the veil that has obscured the unique factors that contribute to their potential mistrust of the police, arguably leading to the erosion of police legitimacy and the perception of the police as a source of danger as opposed to protection (Dario et al., 2019). To begin to fill this gap, this paper analyzes qualitatively derived interview narratives of 49 Latina and black women living in the San Francisco Bay Area. In conducting these interviews, we sought to examine the following two research questions: 1) What are the perceptions of and experiences with the police? and 2) what are the factors that shape their views?

METHODS AND SAMPLE

Between February 2017 and July 2018, we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 49 Black and Latina women, who were between the ages of 18 and 25, all of whom resided in the San Francisco Bay Area. Participants were recruited using Craigslist and Facebook advertisements. Each of the potential participants were screened for eligibility by phone, which included residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, being between the ages of 18 and 25 and identifying as either Black and/or Latina. The interview schedule contained a brief closed-ended survey that included questions to gather sociodemographic information as well as data on the extent to which participants have been in contact with police; a Perceptions of Police Scale (POPS) (Nadal and Davidoff, 2015) to measure perceptions of police and police bias. Open-ended questions comprising the majority of the interview were designed to generate narrative data about participants’ experiences with the police, both personally and vicariously, as well as their perceptions of police. Questions were designed to be open-ended, and phrased in order to avoid leading the participant to discuss the question in any one particular direction. As such, the interview was participant-led, with the interviewers trained in effective probing techniques to ensure richness in data related to emergent topics generated from the participants (Schensul and LeCompte, 2012; Rubin and Rubin, 2011). Finally, we included a lifeline activity (de Vries, 2013; Gramling and Carr, 2004) developed to identify the important milestones and events throughout the course of participants’ lives that shaped who they are as well as their views of the police.

Interviews lasted between 1 and 2 and a half hours, and participants received a $50 honorarium, with the possibility of an additional $25 if they referred other eligible participants. The interviews were conducted by the first author and another trained research associate, both of whom were women of color and approximately the same age as our participants. In using interviewers who were women of color, we hoped to decrease a sense of social distance thereby facilitating and encouraging rapport, a crucially important aspect in research on sensitive and potentially traumatic topics such as police violence (Karnieli-Miller et al., 2009; Liamputtong., 2007). In discussing their perceptions of policing and how they related to the experiences of women of color, many participants made statements using inclusive terms, such as “us” and “we” to explicitly reflect an affinity with the interviewers. This practice by our participants suggests that they viewed the interviewers as insiders, who could readily empathize with their views and experiences of these young women of color, as well as highlighting participants’ sense of comfort with the researchers. In fact, many of the participants expressed the view that the interviews had served as a cathartic experience allowing them to discuss controversial topics, such as experiences with the police and encountering police violence, more openly.

Interview recordings were professionally transcribed verbatim, with any identifying information redacted. Transcripts were then systematically coded, using Atlas.ti, a qualitative text analysis program (Friese, 2013). In the first round of coding, codes, informed by the existing literature and initial research questions, were used to isolate narratives into manageable analytical segments. These codes included socio-demographic characteristics such as race, gender and class, personal encounters, vicarious encounters with the police, sources of vicarious encounters (e.g. family members, friends and romantic partners), reasons for police interactions (e.g. involuntary encounters, such as traffic stops and voluntary encounters, such as making calls to the police), locations of encounters with the police, and police behaviors. During the first round of coding, research staff kept track of all salient topics that emerged from women’s narratives, and upon completion of coding, those topics were added to the original code list and a second round of coding was conducted. Emergent codes included media, publicized accounts, procedural justice and incarceration. Using a thematic analytical approach, we assembled quotation segments within codes into higher order themes, which established the foundation for depicting a portrait of women of color’s perceptions of and experiences with police (Schensul and LeCompte, 2012). We paid close attention to divergent patterns across participants and conflicting discourses within each interview to identify themes as well as reduce threats to the valid interpretation of the data (Antin, Constantine, and Hunt, 2015). Quotations, identified by pseudonyms, are provided below to illustrate emergent themes.

The average age of participants was 22 years old and all participants identified as women of color. Forty three percent of participants (n=21) identified as Black, 26.5 percent (n=13) as Latina, and 30.5 percent (n=15) identified as having more than one or more race or ethnicity. Forty percent of the sample indicated that they had “some college” education; 22 percent had a Bachelor’s degree; 12 percent an Associate’s degree; 14 percent had a High School Diploma and 6 percent had less than a high school education. The majority of the participants, 81.6% (n= 40), had never been incarcerated. Of the participants who had been formerly incarcerated, four had been to jail and a juvenile detention center, and the remaining five participants had only spent time in jail. All participants were born in the United States with the exception of four participants, whose native countries were Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and Eritrea.

FINDINGS

In the interviews, participants were asked to recount any experiences that they have had with law enforcement officers. The most frequent personal encounter with police that women recounted in the interviews were traffic stops, which is unsurprising given that traffic stops are the most common interaction that civilians generally have with the police (Langton and Durose, 2013) and the fact that men and women of color are more likely to be stopped by the police at disproportionate rates in comparison with white drivers (Ritchie, 2017; Lundman and Kaufman, 2003). More than half of the participants (56%) recounted positive, personal encounters with police during their lifetime, and these included being let off for traffic violations or having random, friendly exchanges, with police officers. Nevertheless, although a substantial number of our participants reported having had positive encounters with police at some point in time, these positive encounters did not appear to be particularly influential in shaping most participants’ perceptions of police. In addition to examining participants’ narratives, we reviewed responses to the survey question: “How would you describe your views of police,” 57 percent (n=28) of our participants said that they held negative views of the police, and 43 percent (n=21) reported a neutral view. None of them reported having a positive view.

Negative Perceptions Arising from Personal Experience

While most participants, who held negative views, tended to have experienced multiple negative encounters with police—”I’ve had different experiences with cops, but mostly not positive…mostly negative” (Ana a 24-year-old Latina)—those, who had had only single, negative encounters, described how the incident had an irrevocable effect. For example, Ericka, a 25-year-old Black woman, described how one incident with the police led to her profound mistrust of the police. She recounted how four years prior to the interview, she and her boyfriend were driving out of state and were stopped by police a number of times. When they were pulled over the third time, Ericka ended up getting arrested and subsequently spent two months in jail. She was later released without any charges being filed:

The third time [we were pulled over], they [police] said they smelled marijuana. We did not smoke. We made sure we didn’t because we were driving hecka far and we was not trying to get pulled over. We had to get out of the car. After that, they had found checks in the front seat of the car. They took us on in. I didn’t know anything about it. I still went to jail for two months. I didn’t go to court, they didn’t tell me how long I was going to be in there, anything like that. The week after I got bailed out, that case got dropped.

Negative, personal contacts with police, such as this incident, have been noted by many researchers, who have found that an individual’s overall perception of and satisfaction with police is seriously impacted by a single, traumatic encounter (Schafer et al 2003:446; Weitzer and Tuch 2004: 307; Dean, 1980; Smith and Hawkins, 1973).

Another participant, Elaine, a 25-year-old Black woman, described how, when she was 21 years old, she was falsely stopped for fitting the description of someone who had committed a crime. During the encounter, the police officers forcibly arrested her, which affected not only her perception of the police, but also her mental health in general:

“The police approached me and I had my headphones in. They were like, ‘Ma’am, can you sit down? We need to ask you some questions.’ And I'm like, ‘For what?’ What did I do?’ I literally just have my headphones in, in my own little world. And the next thing you know, they got my arms all bent up behind me. Like, my purse is on the ground, they're taking out all the things in my purse and I'm on the ground… after that, I'm like, Oh, no. I do not like them. The whole thing shouldn't have happened, and that really like traumatized me. I've never been treated like that ever before, especially just for them to be men and then for them to just do me like that and treat me like I wasn't nothing. After that happened, they probably forgot all about me and went on with their lives and was happy and went to their families, smiling. But I'm over here still messed up from it.”

Like Ericka and Elaine, participants, who held negative views of police, described many unfavorable, involuntary contacts with the police. These experiences and the resulting effects have been noted by many researchers, who argue that the type of encounter (e.g. citizen-initiated contacts as opposed to police-initiated contacts), as well as the quality of the encounter, are influential factors in determining perceptions of the police (Smith and Hawkins,1973; Cox and White, 1988; Cheurprakobit, 2000). In the cases of Ericka and Elaine, their perceptions were shaped by negative, forceful, and involuntary encounters initiated by police, which in the case of Erica resulted in being arrested and placed in jail. In both cases, no charges were ever filed. Furthermore, Ericka and Elaine’s negative views of the police were influenced by negative encounters that occurred a few years prior to the interview, which lends support to findings from other studies where researchers have found that contacts with police tend to have a lasting effect on the views of black citizens (Bordua and Tifft, 1971; Tyler and Huo, 2002). Not only do Ericka and Elaine’s negative views of police support the above literature, their experiences with the police, resulting in arrests also lends support to arguments made in early criminological research about the extent to which notions of chivalry accounted for lower arrests rates for women as opposed to men (Moulds, 1980; Visher, 1983). Visher (1983) discovered that intersections of race and gender influenced whether women received preferential treatment from police. More specifically, Visher found that black men and women were arrested at similar rates, whereas older, white women received more lenient treatment from police officers (1983:23).

Negative Perceptions Arising from Vicarious Experiences Displayed in the Media

Unlike the majority of our participants who held negative views of police as a result of experiencing negative personal encounters, a few held negative views because of media accounts of police violence with people of color. Although they had had few, if any, personal encounters with the police, nevertheless, when asked about their perceptions they expressed negative opinions. For example, Maria, a 24-year-old Mexican American woman, attributed her negative views to what she learned from social media regarding Michael Brown’s2 case as well as other highly publicized accounts of police brutality:

I used Tumblr a lot and it was really then that I started to know about Black Lives Matter and stuff like that. And for me, like the one case that really stood out to me, and really just drastically changed everything was actually Michael’s case. What happened to him like really just opened my eyes. […] And then, it was everything else, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner, all of those. It just like started to become a pattern and I’m just like, “What? What is going on?”

Michelle, a 24-year-old Black woman also echoed similar sentiments. She discussed how the death of Michael Brown, in addition to other accounts of police brutality displayed in the media, influenced her views of police:

I’m surprised a little bit, by how negative my views are of the police, but how few experiences I’ve had with them in my own life. Michael Brown was killed, while we were visiting my grandparents. And when it was happening, it was just little snippets of news coming through of, you know, a black kid was killed 20 minutes away. And that’s something that was unfortunately just kind of a blip on the radar. But just ended up having such a big influence […] He was a kid in my family’s community...it was just kind of surreal. I’ve always been like the very kind of emotionally reactive one in my family...But I feel like me and my sister, we’ve just been very shaken by every time we see another name pop up in the news, or on Twitter.

Finally, Ana, a 24-year-old Latina woman, also described how discussions of police brutality in the media had influenced her negative views of the police, although she was unsure whether the police were actually committing more offenses or whether these practices were being more commonly exposed in the media:

Just generally speaking, all the deaths and police brutality that’s happened in the hands of police, it can’t go unnoticed. I don’t know if it’s increased so much now than it was before. But I feel like we are more aware of it now because of how much is getting displayed in the media. I feel like we see it a lot more now. I can’t say it’s happening more than it did before. Because even before, there was so much more discrimination happening back in the day. You know? I think there’s just so many different instances, and especially now, considering that it’s just being highlighted a lot in the media.”

The influence of media accounts on how people of color view the police is not surprising, and a number of studies have examined how exposure to the media shape citizens’ opinions of and satisfaction with police. Moreover, publicized accounts of police brutality in the media have been associated with unfavorable views of the police (Lasley, 1994; Weitzer and Tuch, 2002, 2005). For example, a study of citizens’ confidence in police following Rodney King’s beating3 by police officers in Los Angeles, found that positive opinions about law enforcement decreased significantly following King’s arrest (Lasley,1994). Similarly, Weitzer (2002) found that following publicized accounts of police brutality displayed in the media in New York and Los Angeles, black and Latino citizens’ unfavorable views of police increased following the events, whereas the views of white citizens remained relatively stable (2002:403). While favorable views of the police tend to decrease following a single, publicized account of police misconduct, it is likely that frequent media exposure of separate accounts of misconduct can have a stronger effect on perceptions of the police (Weitzer and Tuch, 2004: 308). Maria, Michelle and Ana’s negative perceptions of police as a result of exposure to several media accounts of police brutality not only supports the above literature, but their views also highlight the importance of vicarious experience in influencing perceptions of the police, as their views were shaped by others’ experiences as opposed to their own.

Neutral Perceptions of Police Arising from Vicarious Experiences

In general, participants, who reported having neutral views of police, tended to have had fewer personal and involuntary encounters with the police. Instead, many of them had heard from friends and family, about police brutality against people of color. These accounts contributed to their neutral perceptions of the police. For example, Maya, a 25-year-old biracial (Black and White) participant, while noting that she personally had not experience any negative encounters with police, nevertheless argued that hearing from her friends about their negative experiences did influence her perceptions and consequently she ended up having somewhat neutral views of the police:

“In my experience, they’ve [police] always been helpful. Everything that I’ve heard that’s negative has been events with some other people. [...] My experience is a lot different than a lot of people of color. So, if I say police are good people--like if I go off my experience, it’d be yes [they are good people]. If I’m going off the other things I hear about, the videos that are posted online of police harassing people, people I know, family members who are harassed, then not always. If I only go off my experience, you know, then police are wonderful people. And I think too many people go off of that. They just go off of, ‘Well, my experience is good. That means all these other people are lying. They must have done something wrong.’ Whereas, I believe people when they say that things happened to them.”

Similarly, Sylvia, a 20-year-old Mexican woman, who again had had minimal personal experiences with the police, and in none of them had she felt negatively about the police, was nevertheless distressed by others’ experiences. Learning about her cousins’ experiences with the police and a previous boyfriend’s fears of being stopped by police, coupled with media accounts of police brutality towards people of color, all contributed to her neutral view of police officers:

One of my cousins--he’s had the shit beat out of him by cops […] I would hear more stories about my cousins, and about the way that cops like passively not help [them] […] [and how] they got abused and hurt. It was just the people that they were trusting to protect them, just weren’t doing it. And then I was dating this boy and he was Black. I remember one time, I made a weird turn, and then, he’s like, ‘Why did you do that?’ He confided in me that he would never do anything reckless when he was driving because he’s really afraid to get stopped. I never really thought about that stuff…I don’t have the same experiences of some other people that I’ve known. I completely understand why somebody would have a negative view of [the police]. There’s proof of it too. It’s not just like word of mouth. There [are] so many videos and people who can just tell you that they’ve been given the worst experiences...I can’t understand what it feels like to have so much prejudice against you and I feel like that definitely changes my perception [of the police] and that makes it easier to be neutral.

Maya and Sylvia’s narratives illustrate how they perceive their experiences with the police to be exceptional in comparison with the experiences of other people. Studies suggest that vicarious experiences of unjust police practices, even in spite of one’s own positive experiences with the police, can contribute to negative or neutral perceptions of the police (Weitzer and Tuch, 2004 and Rosenbaum et al., 2005). Moreover, if these accounts involve people within one’s own personal network of family and friends, then the effect on perceptions is even greater, leading to even less confidence in the police (Weitzer, 2017; Miller et al., 2005). Although Maria and Sylvia’s perceptions of the police were influenced by experiences other than their own, this notion highlights the ways in which women of color are vicariously affected by police violence. In Maya and Sylvia’s case, they were not directly impacted by adverse police encounters that they experienced personally, but nevertheless instances of adverse police encounters affected them as these accounts involved loved ones and other people of color.

Neutral Perceptions of Police Despite Adverse, Personal Encounters

While a majority of our participants, who held neutral views of police tended to have minimal personal encounters with police, there were a few who held a neutral or ambivalent view of police, despite reporting a number of negative encounters with the police. For example, Frances, a 26-year-old biracial woman (Black and White) recounted having had several negative involuntary personal encounters with police, and yet still held a somewhat neutral view. She asserted that there are “nice” police officers:

It’s neutral. Like I said, I’ve met a couple of nice fuckin’ cops, but then that’s when my negative side comes in: the shit I’ve seen, the shit that I’ve actually had to deal with of my own accord. I feel like, fuck them. Why should I care if they don’t care? But I don’t care about the ones that don’t care about me. That’s how I feel about it […] I feel for the nice cops. I feel for them so bad, because they’re actually caring. They’re being genuine. They’re actually protecting and serving. They’re doing what they need to do, compared to this asshole. This asshole just don’t give a fuck. He’s got a gun and badge, and wants to take that to his head… But the nice ones, I’m sorry, you’re okay.

Similarly, Kelly, a 20-year-old Black woman, who recounted several negative personal encounters, nevertheless felt quite neutral:

“I feel neutral about the police. Some are good. Some are bad. That’s just like, with any person […] America’s not fair in how they teach their police, because there [are] so many unarmed bystanders getting shot. I think they’re teaching people that citizens are like, armed and dangerous… Nobody deserves to die by somebody who should be trained in their job to know what to do. So, I honestly, I feel like police are okay. They just need better training. […] When I was 17 and 18, I [was] like, F the police. I didn’t like them, because I [felt] like, they [were] always doing something to somebody. They [were] always doing something wrong. But as I got older, I met that officer who, even though he arrested me a couple times, he just still saw something that he needed to speak to. So, you know, I’m like, these people are normal people. You know? They're just going through their own things…”

Like other participants in our study, Kelly and Frances emphasized the pervasiveness of police brutality and unjust police practices, and yet, within their narratives, they noted that their perceptions were also influenced by other issues. Kelly, for instance, suggested that the police lacked adequate training, a situation which led to a substantial number of civilian deaths. However, Frances believed that unjust police practices were related to a lack of police accountability. Interestingly, their narratives also demonstrated that they felt empathy towards “good” officers, a view that likely stemmed from their positive police experiences. In general, however, participants de-emphasized their positive encounters, suggesting that their experiences were unusual. Instead, they expressed deep concern about widespread police misconduct and brutality. Participants, whose perceptions were influenced more by vicarious experiences, even out-weighing their own personal experiences, highlights the overall importance of vicarious experiences and confirms existing literature suggesting that simply hearing about experiences with the police through friends, family members, and media, has a strong influence on how citizens interpret and assess their own interactions with the police (Mazerolle et al 2013: 38; Weitzer and Tuch, 2005).

DISCUSSION

While our study focused on perceptions of the police among women of color, participants’ narratives tended to highlight men of color’s adverse experiences with the police and how the media’s display of police brutality involving men of color profoundly affected their own views of the police. The relative absence of instances of police brutality involving women of color in participants’ narratives can be attributed to the fact that the discourse around police violence has been framed as an issue that particularly affects black males (Crenshaw et al., 2015). In effect, this notion has influenced the substantial amount of attention in the media focusing on men of color’s adverse experiences with the police, while failing to highlight the experiences of women of color. For instance, two weeks prior to the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died after suffering from injuries while in police custody in Baltimore, Maryland, Mya Hall, a black transgender woman was killed by law enforcement officers on the outskirts of the same city (African American Policy Forum, 2015; Ritchie, 2017). Nevertheless, Freddie Gray’s death garnered national attention in the media, whereas the death of Mya Hall did not (Romano, 2015). Cultivation theory (Gerbner and Gross, 1976) suggests that images displayed in television tend to affect the ways in which viewers perceive issues related to crime and violence, and that views of those, who heavily consume television, tend to mirror what is portrayed on television, which ultimately distorts their views of reality (Gerbner and Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al., 1977; Intravia et al. 2017:965; Callahan and Rosenberger, 2011). Although Gerbner and Gross’ thesis did not examine its impact on perceptions of the police and instead examined general images presented on television, it is likely that other forms of media function similarly. Given that men of color’s fatal encounters with the police have received a significant amount of media coverage in stark contrast to the experiences of women of color, it should therefore not be surprising that accounts of police brutality involving men of color were influential in shaping participants’ views of the police. As Weitzer and Kubrin (2004) state, “...the greater one’s exposure to the media, the more likely it is that one’s perceptions of the real world will match what is depicted in the media” (2004:499). Thus, viewing several accounts of police brutality in the media created the view that the actions of the officers involved in these publicized cases were a reflection of behaviors of other police officers, which in turn, influenced participants’ views (see Weitzer, 2002 and conclusion for further discussion). Not only is the omission of women of color’s experiences with police brutality a distortion of reality, it may also be considered a form of structural violence against women of color, operating to silence and invalidate their own traumatic experiences with the police. Moreover, this notion further contributes to the erasure of women of color’s experiences with police violence, which ultimately makes their experiences invisible (Ritchie, 2017). In support of this study and of the importance of documenting the experiences of women of color, Maria, a 24-year-old Mexican-American woman stated:

“I like what you guys are doing. I think it’s necessary. We do need more of women’s experiences with [the] police. That’s why #SayHerName was one of the big things that happened because women of color and their interactions with police brutality are just never talked about, even within our own communities.”

CONCLUSION

Findings presented in this paper contribute to literature examining citizens’ perceptions of the police in three ways. First, our study makes contributions to the literature by transcending the “black-white paradigm in examining citizens’ perceptions of the police” (Wu, 2014) by relying on a sample of all people color, including racial/ethnic groups that have been identified in literature to be more likely to report unfavorable views of and experiences with the police. Second, our study builds upon existing research by examining the views of women, who are racial/ethnic minorities and whose perceptions are underrepresented in the literature. Finally, we use qualitative analysis to assess women of color’s perceptions of the police and the factors that shape their views, which is a significant contribution to this area of research, as these studies are mostly quantitative and use survey data for analysis (Brandl et al., 2006).

In general, analysis of the interview narratives of our participants highlights the extent to which the police are viewed negatively, or at best neutrally, but never positively, by young women of color. Such widespread and unfavorable perceptions of the police point clearly to the fact that far from viewing unacceptable police practices as merely cases of a few “rotten apples,” our participants in general consider law enforcement and the culture of policing to be a “rotten barrel” (Punch, 2003; Perry, 2001; Griffin and Ruiz, 1999). These findings are consistent with research on the perceptions of the police by people of color, more generally (Morin and Stepler, 2016; Peck, 2015; Barrick, 2014; Brunson and Weitzer, 2009; Brown and Benedict, 2002). Narratives presented here demonstrate the different factors that influence how these young women perceive the police. The relative absence of research focusing on women of color’s perceptions of the police could be attributed to the view that women are less in contact with the criminal justice system. However, our research and other recent research suggest that that is not the case (see Ritchie, 2017 and Morris, 2016). Findings of our study also emphasize that perceptions of the police held by women of color are influenced both by personal and vicarious experiences of police behavior. Such findings are consistent with other available research, and further supports the view that people of color generally do not hold favorable views of the police.

This analysis also reveals how accounts of police brutality displayed in the media are powerful influences, shaping women’s perceptions of the police. To date, research has tended to examine vicarious experiences with the police as though these experiences only involved experiences of those within a person’s social network, such as friends and family members (Weitzer and Tuch, 2004), and yet, our findings suggest that the media also plays an important role. While some of the available research has demonstrated the ways that exposure to different forms of media influence one’s view of police, the media has not tended to be included under the category of vicarious experiences in shaping perceptions of the police. The rise of “citizen journalism” (Allan and Thorsten, 2009; Anthony and Thomas, 2010; Greer and McLaughlin, 2010), in addition to technological advances, such as increased access to the internet, smartphones and social media, have started to play a vital role in documenting and disseminating accounts of police brutality and other forms of police misconduct. Citizen journalism, in which “an ordinary person feels compelled to adopt the role of a news reporter,” (Allan and Thorsen, 2009) has increasingly become instrumental in documenting police-civilian encounters and advertising these experiences widely among multiple audiences and networks. Many highly publicized accounts of police misconduct and brutality (e.g. the fatal encounters with police involving Korryn Gaines, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling) were the result of civilian journalism where a bystander captured the incident on a mobile device and then disseminated the video using social media. To date, research has yet to sufficiently investigate how digital technologies have influenced perceptions of the police (for exceptions, see Intravia et al 2017), which is somewhat surprising given the significant role that the internet and social media has played in documenting police misconduct. Consequently, we would suggest that future research begin to examine more thoroughly the ways in which social media has an impact on users’ perceptions of police.

Acknowledgements:

Collection of data in this article was made possible by funding by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health [AA022656] (PI: Dr. G. Hunt). Sincere appreciation is due to each participant who volunteered their time for the study. Without them, this research would not be possible. We also thank Maya Sisneros, who conducted interviews and made contributions to the coding process.

Funding: The research and preparation of this manuscript was supported by grant AA022656 from the from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the opinions NIH or NIAA.

Biography

Ida Wilson is a qualitative researcher and Project Manager with the Center for Critical Public Health at the Institute for Scientific Analysis in Alameda, CA. She received a master’s degree in applied anthropology from San José State University in 2015 and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of California, Riverside in 2013.

Tamar M.J. Antin is a qualitative researcher interested in critical perspectives in public health research. Her research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, focuses on health inequities and the unintended consequences of public health policies. She received her doctorate in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s degree in applied anthropology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Currently, Tamar is Director of the Center for Critical Public Health at the Institute for Scientific Analysis.

Geoffrey Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist. Currently he is Professor at the Centre for Alcohol and Drugs Research at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis, in San Francisco. Dr. Hunt is the Principal Investigator (PI) on an NIH funded project on Gender and Intoxication and also PI on two Danish Research Council projects. His book publications include “Youth Drugs and Nightlife” (Routledge, 2010), “Drugs and Culture” (Ashgate, 2011) and the Sage Handbook of Drug and Alcohol Studies (2017).

Footnotes

Declaration of Interests: None.

1

On July 10th, 2015, Sandra Bland was stopped by a Texas Department Safety Trooper in Plainview, Texas for failing to signal a lane change. The dashcam video of the stop shows the trooper yelling at Bland and ordering her to get out of her vehicle. When she refused, he proceeded to remove her from her vehicle and threatened her with a taser. According to the trooper, she kicked and swung her elbows at him. She subsequently was arrested and placed in jail for assaulting a public servant. Three days later, she was found dead in her jail cell. https://time.com/3966220/sandra-bland-video/

2

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by police officer, Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Wilson was not indicted for Brown’s death. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/ferguson-missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html

3

On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a black motorist, was brutally beaten by four officers from the Los Angeles Police Department during a traffic stop. https://time.com/4245175/rodney-king-la-riots-anniversary/

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