Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Should police officers who use force against peaceful protesters be punished? A national experiment

  • Published:
Journal of Experimental Criminology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

In a period of mass protest, police use of force against protesters regularly makes headlines across the country. Our study contributes to the literature on public opinion about protest policing by examining support for punishing officers who use force against peaceful protesters.

Methods

We used a factorial survey experiment administered by YouGov (N = 1000), wherein an officer used force against a peaceful protester. We randomized the type of force, the protest goal, and protester characteristics (race, sex, and age)—factors relevant to theories of retributive intuitions (just-deserts) and group threat. We also included political beliefs and racial resentment as observational predictors. Respondents rated the moral acceptability of force and the officer’s deservingness of punishment.

Results

Respondents evaluated the use of force against peaceful protesters as morally wrong and deserving of punishment. Except for protester age, the experimental manipulations did not affect evaluations of police use of force. However, there was a sizable political divide in use-of-force evaluations, which was mediated by racial animus.

Conclusions

When it comes to public evaluations of police behavior toward peaceful protesters, what matters more than situational details (e.g., protest goals, protester demographics) is the evaluators’ political and racial attitudes. Americans on the political right are less willing to punish police misbehavior because they are more racially resentful.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Our hypothesis that racial resentment acts as a mediator draws from contemporary political science studies. In short, and in contrast to previous eras where widescale political sorting was based on racial attitudes (largely as a consequence of the Southern Strategy; Carmines & Stimson, 1989), recent political science literature suggests that the partisan sorting process has stabilized and resulted in more polarized parties (Mason, 2018). As a result, current studies suggest that differences in elite messaging between parties drives changes in individuals’ racial attitudes, consequently increasing polarization in racial attitudes between parties (Enns & Jardina, 2021; Engelhardt 2021a,b).

  2. Although counterintuitive, the number of factors in a factorial experiment has little effect on statistical power for main effects, because cell size (by crossed factors) matters less than level size (by an individual factor) (Collins et al., 2009). In other words, for any given factor, all other randomized factors “simply add to the infinite list of pretreatment covariates” and can be ignored without biasing estimates, due to randomization (Bansak et al. 2021: 32).

  3. Missing values on income (N = 107) were imputed using scores on the other variables. This did not meaningfully impact the findings.

  4. The items in the religiosity index measured frequency of prayer and church attendance, as well as the perceived importance of religion.

  5. Because the use of a TASER is also relatively targeted, supplementary models included TASER as the reference category. The findings were substantively identical same across all models.

  6. We also examined if protest goals and protester race are moderated by racial resentment (e.g., Metcalfe & Pickett, 2022). We did not find any evidence of a conditional relationship for either outcome.

References

  • Ackerman, P., & Kruegler, C. (1994). Strategic nonviolent conflict: The dynamics of people power in the twentieth century. Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allison, R., Knoester, C., & Ridpath, B. D. (2022). Public opinions about paying college athletes and athletes protesting during the national anthem: A focus on race/ethnicity and political identities. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 19(1), 61–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ansolabehere, S., & Rivers, D. (2013). Cooperative survey research. Annual Review of Political Science, 16(1), 307–329.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ansolabehere, S., & Schaffner, B. F. (2014). Does survey mode still matter? Findings from a 2010 multi-mode comparison. Political Analysis, 22(3), 285–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auspurg, K., & Hinz, T. (2014). Factorial survey experiments (Vol. 175). Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bansak, K., Hainmueller, J., Hopkins, D. J., & Yamamoto, T. (2021). Conjoint survey experiments. In J. N. Druckman & D. P. Green (Eds.), Advances in experimental political science (pp. 19–41). Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Barkan, S. E., & Cohn, S. F. (1998). Racial prejudice and support by whites for police use of force: A research note. Justice Quarterly, 15(4), 743–753.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beckett, K., & Sasson, T. (2004). The politics of injustice: Crime and punishment in America. Sage Publications.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Belsley, D. A., Kuh, E., & Welsch, R. E. (2005). Regression diagnostics: Identifying influential data and sources of collinearity. John Wiley & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bensimon, M., & Bodner, E. (2012). Does the age of offenders and victims in crime scenarios affect perceptions of crime seriousness and punitiveness among students? Violence and Victims, 27(3), 344–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blalock, H. M. (1967). Toward a theory of minority-group relations (Vol. 325). Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blumer, H. (1958). Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review, 1(1), 3–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradford, B., Milani, J., & Jackson, J. (2017). Identity, legitimacy and “making sense” of police use of force. Policing: An International Journal., 40(3), 614–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brady, H. E., & Kent, T. B. (2022). Fifty years of declining confidence & increasing polarization in trust in American institutions. Dædalus, 151(4), 43–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, L. C., Cullen, F. T., & Burton, V. S., Jr. (2023). Racial attitudes and belief in redeemability: Most Whites believe justice-involved Black people can change. Criminology, 61(1), 316–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butler, K., Baker, M., & Watkins, A. (2021). In city after city, police mishandled Black Lives Matter protests. The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/us/protests-policing-george-floyd.html

  • Carlsmith, K. M. (2008). On justifying punishment: The discrepancy between words and actions. Social Justice Research, 21(1), 119–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, J. (2020). Police warriors and police guardians: Race, masculinity, and the construction of gun violence. Social Problems, 67(3), 399–417.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carmines, E. G., & Stimson, J. A. (1989). Issue evolution. Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, J. S., Corra, M., & Jenks, D. A. (2016). In the shadows of Ferguson: The role of racial resentment on White attitudes towards the use of force by police in the United States. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 11(2), 114–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chamlin, Mitchell B., & Liska, Allen E. (1992). Social structure and crime control revisited: The declining significance of intergroup threat. In Allen E. Liska (Ed.), Social Threat and Social Control. SUNY Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheh, M. M. (2004). Demonstrations, security zones, and first amendment protection of special places. UDC/DCSL l. Rev., 8, 53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiricos, T., Pickett, J. T., & Lehmann, P. (2020). Group threat and social control: A review of theory and research. In C. Cecilia Chouhy, J. C. Cochran, & C. L. Jonson (Eds.), Criminal Justice Theory: Explanation and Effects (pp. 69–92). Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Chudy, J. (2021). Racial sympathy and its political consequences. The Journal of Politics, 83(1), 122–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chudy, J., & Jefferson, H. (2021). Support for Black Lives Matter surged last year. Did it last. New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/opinion/blm-movement-protests-support.html

  • Clark, J., & Friedman, B. (2020). Community Advisory Boards: What works and what doesn’t (Lessons from a National Study). American Journal of Criminal Law., 47(1), 159180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, L. M., Dziak, J. J., & Li, R. (2009). Design of experiments with multiple independent variables: A resource management perspective on complete and reduced factorial designs. Psychological Methods, 14(3), 202–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cullen, F. T., Butler, L. C., & Graham, A. (2021). Racial attitudes and criminal justice policy. Crime and Justice, 50(1), 163–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darley, J. M. (2009). Morality in the law: The psychological foundations of citizens’ desires to punish transgressions. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 5(1), 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darley, J. M., & Pittman, T. S. (2003). The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 324–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davenport, C., Soule, S. A., & Armstrong, D. A. (2011). Protesting while black? The differential policing of American activism, 1960 to 1990. American Sociological Review, 76(1), 152–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Quervain, D. J. F., Fishbacher, U., Treyer, V., Schellhammer, M., Schnyder, U., Buck, A., & Fehr, E. (2004). The neural basis of altruistic punishment. Science, 305(1), 1254–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doherty, D., Dowling, C. M., Miller, M. G., & Tuma, M. D. (2022). Race, crime, and the public’s sentencing preferences. Public Opinion Quarterly, 86(1), 523–546.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drakulich, K., & Denver, M. (2022). The partisans and the persuadables: Public views of black lives matter and the 2020 protests. Perspectives on Politics, 20(4), 1191–1208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drakulich, K., Wozniak, K. H., Hagan, J., & Johnson, D. (2020). Race and policing in the 2016 presidential election: Black lives matter, the police, and dog whistle politics. Criminology, 58(2), 370–402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drakulich, K., Wozniak, K. H., Hagan, J., & Johnson, D. (2021). Whose lives mattered? How White and Black Americans felt about Black Lives Matter in 2016. Law & Society RevIew, 55(1), 227–251.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drakulich, K., Rodriguez-Whitney, E., & Robles, J. (2023a). Why White Americans more frequently fail to view the police critically: A subtle but vital shift in focus. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 20(1), 57–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drakulich, K., Robles, J., Rodriguez-Whitney, E., & Pereira, C. (2023b). Who believes that the police use excessive force? Centering racism in research on perceptions of the police. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 60(1), 112–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duxbury, S. W. (2021). Who controls criminal law? Racial threat and the adoption of state sentencing law, 1975 to 2012. American Sociological Review, 86(1), 123-153.

  • Edwards, P., & Arnon, D. (2021). Violence on many sides: Framing effects on protest and support for repression. British Journal of Political Science, 51(2), 488–506.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enders, A. M., & Scott, J. S. (2019). The increasing racialization of American electoral politics, 1988–2016. American Politics Research, 47(2), 275–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engelhardt, A. M. (2021a). Racial attitudes through a partisan lens. British Journal of Political Science, 51(3), 1062–1079.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engelhardt, A. M. (2021b). The content of their coverage: Contrasting racially conservative and liberal elite rhetoric. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 9(5), 935–954.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enns, P. K., & Jardina, A. (2021). Complicating the role of white racial attitudes and anti-immigrant sentiment in the 2016 US presidential election. Public Opinion Quarterly, 85(2), 539–570.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fine, A. D., Rowan, Z., & Simmons, C. (2019). Do politics Trump race in determining America’s youths’ perceptions of law enforcement? Journal of Criminal Justice, 61(1), 48–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, D. R., & Rouse, S. M. (2022). Intersectionality within the racial justice movement in the summer of 2020. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 119(30), 1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Francis, M. M., & Wright-Rigueur, L. (2021). Black Lives Matter in historical perspective. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 17(1), 441–458.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Godcharles, B. D., Rad, J. D. J., Heide, K. M., Cochran, J. K., & Solomon, E. P. (2019). Can empathy close the racial divide and gender gap in death penalty support? Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 37, 16–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gomila, R. (2021). Logistic or linear? Estimating causal effects of experimental treatments on binary outcomes using regression analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(4), 700.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graham, A., Pickett, J. T., & Cullen, F. T. (2021). Advantages of matched over unmatched opt-in samples for studying criminal justice attitudes: A research note. Crime & Delinquency, 67(12), 1962–1981.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, R., Quasem, M., Sides, J., & Tesler, M. (2021). Racing apart: Partisan shifts on racial attitudes over the last decade. Democracy Fund: Voter Study Group. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/racing-apart#share-content

  • Gromet, D. M., & Darley, J. M. (2009a). Retributive and restorative justice: Importance of crime severity and shared identity in people’s justice responses. Australian Journal of Psychology, 61(1), 50–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gromet, D. M., & Darley, J. M. (2009b). Punishment and beyond: Achieving justice through the satisfaction of multiple goals. Law & Society Review, 43(1), 1–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grunwald, B., Nyarko, J., & Rappaport, J. (2022). Police agencies on Facebook overreport on Black suspects. PNAS, 119(45), 2203089119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gutting, R. S. (2020). Contentious activities, disrespectful protesters: Effect of protest context on protest support and mobilization across ideology and authoritarianism. Political Behavior, 42(3), 865–890.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hainmueller, J., Hangartner, D., & Yamamoto, T. (2015). Validating vignette and conjoint survey experiments against real-world behavior. PNAS, 112(8), 2395–2400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haner, M., Sloan, M. M., Pickett, J. T., & Cullen, F. T. (2022). When do Americans ‘see something, say something’? Experimental evidence on the willingness to report terrorist activity. Justice Quarterly, 39(5), 1079–1103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hannan, K. R., Cullen, F. T., Butler, L. C., Graham, A., Burton, A. L., & Burton, V. S., Jr. (2022). Racial sympathy and support for capital punishment: A case study in concept transfer. Deviant Behavior, 43(7), 780–803.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henry, P. J., & Sears, D. O. (2002). The symbolic racism 2000 scale. Political Psychology, 23, 253–283.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinton, E. (2021). America on fire: The untold history of police violence and Black rebellion since the 1960s. Liveright Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hsiao, Y., & Radnitz, S. (2021). Allies or agitators? How partisan identity shapes public opinion about violent or nonviolent protests. Political Communication, 38(4), 479–497.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang, F. L. (2022). Alternatives to logistic regression models in experimental studies. The Journal of Experimental Education, 90(1), 213–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ilchi, O. S., Frank, J., & Hickling, S. J. (2022). Policing the police: Predicting citizen support for police accountability. Police Practice and Research, 23(6), 722–738.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ilchi, O. S., Hickling, S. J., & Frank, J. (2023). Citizen willingness to hold a police officer criminally responsible for the use of deadly force: Examining the correlates of finding guilt. Race and Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687231161770

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Intravia, J., Piquero, A. R., & Piquero, N. L. (2018). The racial divide surrounding United States of America national anthem protests in the National Football League. Deviant Behavior, 39(8), 1058–1068.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, J. C., Choi, V. K., & Gelfand, M. J. (2019). Revenge: A multilevel review and synthesis. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 319–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jardina, A., & Ollerenshaw, T. (2022). The polls—trends: The polarization of White racial attitudes and support for racial equality in the US. Public Opinion Quarterly, 86(S1), 576–587.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katersky, A. (2023). Nearly 150 New York City police officers violated department rules during 2020 George Floyd protests: Report. ABC News. Retrieved February 15, 2023 from https://abcnews.go.com/US/150-new-york-city-police-officers-violated-department/story?id=96928974

  • King, R. D., & Wheelock, D. (2007). Group threat and social control: Race, perceptions of minorities and the desire to punish. Social Forces, 85(3), 1255–1280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klinger, D., Rosenfeld, R., Isom, D., & Deckard, M. (2016). Race, crime, and the micro-ecology of deadly force. Criminology & Public Policy, 15(1), 193–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kochel, T. R. (2022). Policing unrest: On the front lines of the Ferguson protests. New York University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kyprianides, A., Yesberg, J. A., Milani, J., Bradford, B., Quinton, P., & Clark-Darby, O. (2021). Perceptions of police use of force: The importance of trust. Policing: An International Journal, 44(1), 175–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liska, A. E., & Chamlin, M. B. (1984). Social structure and crime control among macrosocial units. American Journal of Sociology, 90(2), 383–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maguire, E. R. (2015). New directions in protest policing. Saint Louis University Public Law Review, 35(1), 67–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maguire, E. R. (2021). Protest policing and the reality of freedom: Evidence from Hong Kong, Portland, and Santiago in 2019 and 2020. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 45(3), 299–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maguire, E. R., & Oakley, M. (2020). Policing protests: Lessons from the occupy movement, Ferguson & beyond: A guide for police. New York, NY: Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.hfg.org/hfg_reports/policing-protests-lessons-from-the-occupy-movement-ferguson-andbeyond/.

  • Manekin, D., & Mitts, T. (2022). Effective for whom? Ethnic identity and nonviolent resistance. American Political Science Review, 116(1), 161–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mendelberg, T. (2001). The race card. Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mason, L. (2018). Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. University of Chicago Press.

  • Metcalfe, C., & Pickett, J. T. (2022). Public fear of protesters and support for protest policing: An experimental test of two theoretical models. Criminology, 60(1), 60–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miethe, T. D., Venger, O., & Lieberman, J. D. (2019). Police use of force and its video coverage: An experimental study of the impact of media source and content on public perceptions. Journal of Criminal Justice, 60(1), 35–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mize, T. D., & Manago, B. (2022). The past, present, and future of experimental methods in the social sciences. Social Science Research, 108, 102799.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mood, C. (2010). Logistic regression: Why we cannot do what we think we can do, and what we can do about it. European Sociological Review, 26(1), 69–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morris, R. C., & LeCount, R. J. (2020). The value of social control: Racial resentment, punitiveness, and white support for spending on law enforcement. Sociological Perspectives, 63(5), 697–718.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mourtgos, S. M., & Adams, I. T. (2020). The effect of prosecutorial actions on deterrence: A county-level analysis. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 31(4), 479–499.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Muhammad, K. G. (2019). The condemnation of Blackness: Race, crime, and the making of modern urban America, with a new preface. Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mullinix, K. J., Bolsen, T., & Norris, R. J. (2021). The feedback effects of controversial police use of force. Political Behavior, 43(1), 881–898.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mummolo, J. (2018). Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation. PNAS, 115(37), 9181–9186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nooruddin, I. (2007). Blind justice: “Seeing” race and gender in cases of violent crime. Politics & Gender, 3(3), 321–348.

    Google Scholar 

  • Novick, R., & Pickett, J. T. (2022). Black Lives Matter, protest policing, and voter support for police reform in Portland, Oregon. Race and Justice.https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2022.2119157

  • Osgood, J. M. (2017). Is revenge about retributive justice, deterring harm, or both? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(1), e12296. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Passavant, P. A. (2021). Policing Protest: The Post-Democratic State and the Figure of Black Insurrection. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Patil, S. V. (2018). Public support for the punishment of police use of force errors: Evidence of ideological divergence and convergence. Police Quarterly, 21(3), 358–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perry, G. (2016). The descent of man. Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peyton, K., Sierra-Arévalo, M., & Rand, D. G. (2019). A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(40), 19894–19898.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peyton, K., Weiss, C. M., & Vaughn, P. (2022). Beliefs about minority representation in policing and support for diversification. PNAS, 119(52), e2213986119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phelps, M. S., Ward, A., & Frazier, D. (2021). From police reform to police abolition? How Minneapolis activists fought to make Black lives matter. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 26(4), 421–441.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickett, J. T., Mancini, C., & Mears, D. P. (2013). Vulnerable victims, monstrous offenders, and unmanageable risk: Explaining public opinion on the social control of sex crime. Criminology, 51(3), 729–759.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pryce, D. K., & Gainey, R. (2022). Race differences in public satisfaction with and trust in the local police in the context of George Floyd protests: An analysis of residents’ experiences and attitudes. Criminal Justice Studies, 35(1), 74–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, L. E. (2013). Beyond ‘oversight’: a problem-oriented approach to police reform. Police Practice and Research, 14(2), 169-181.

  • Reny, T. T., & Newman, B. J. (2021). The opinion-mobilizing effect of social protest against police violence: Evidence from the 2020 George Floyd protests. American Political Science Review, 115(4), 1499–1507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richards, Z. (2022). DOJ Reaches Settlement in 2020 cases involving Lafayette Square Protesters. NBC News. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/doj-reaches-settlement-2020-cases-involving-lafayette-square-protester-rcna24325

  • Roberts, J., & Stalans, L. J. (2001). Public opinion, crime, and criminal justice. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, P. H. (2008). Distributive principles of criminal law: Who should be punished, how much? Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, P. H. (2013). Intuitions of justice and the utility of desert. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, P. H., & Darley, J. M. (1997). The utility of desert. Northwestern University Law Review, 91(2), 453–499.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, P. H., Goodwin, G. P., & Reisig, M. D. (2010). The disutility of injustice. New York University Law Review, 85(1), 1940–2033.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roche, S. P. (2019). The impact of surveillance and procedurally just behavior on civilian affect and responses in hypothetical interactions with police officers. Policing: An International Journal, 42(6), 1107–1123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, J., & Levenson, E. (2020). Buffalo protester Martin Gugino has a fractured skull and cannot walk. CNN. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/martin-gugino-protester-skull/index.html

  • Rossi, P. H., Simpson, J. E., & Miller, J. L. (1985). Beyond crime seriousness: Fitting the punishment to the crime. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 1, 59–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruisch, B. C., & Ferguson, M. J. (2022). Changes in Americans’ prejudices during the presidency of Donald Trump. Nature Human Behaviour, 6(5), 656–665.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, J. (2023). Shielded: How the police became untouchable. Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silver, J. R., & Pickett, J. T. (2015). Toward a better understanding of politicized policing attitudes: Conflicted conservatism and support for police use of force. Criminology, 53(4), 650–676.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silver, J. R., & Shi, L. (2023). Punishing Protesters on the “Other Side”: Partisan bias in public support for repressive and punitive responses to protest violence. Socius. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231182908

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silver, E., Goff, K., & Iceland, J. (2022). Social order and social justice: Moral intuitions, systemic racism beliefs, and Americans’ divergent attitudes toward Black Lives Matter and police. Criminology, 60(2), 342–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simmons, A. D., & Bobo, L. D. (2018). Understanding “no special favors”: A quantitative and qualitative mapping of the meaning of responses to the racial resentment scale. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 15(2), 323–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, J. P., & Merolla, D. M. (2019). Black, blue, and blow: The effect of race and criminal history on perceptions of police violence. Sociological Inquiry, 89(4), 624–644.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Socia, K. M., Rydberg, J., & Dum, C. P. (2021). Punitive attitudes toward individuals convicted of sex offenses: A vignette study. Justice Quarterly, 38(6), 1262–1289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stepp, K. K., & Castle, J. J. (2021). Research note: Authoritarianism, racial resentment, and attitudes on the Colin Kaepernick protests. The Social Science Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/03623319.2021.1884781

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stults, B. J., & Baumer, E. P. (2007). Racial context and police force size: Evaluating the empirical validity of the minority threat perspective. American Journal of Sociology, 113(2), 507–546.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tesler, M., & Sears, D. O. (2010). Obama’s race: The 2008 election and the dream of a post-racial America. University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, A. J., Pickett, J. T., Graham, A., & Cullen, F. T. (2023). Protest policing, normative alignment, and riot gear: An experiment. Crime & Delinquency. https://doi.org/10.1177/00111287231189718

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler, T. R., Sherman, L., Strang, H., Barnes, G. C., & Woods, D. (2007). Reintegrative shaming, procedural Justice, and recidivism: The engagement of offenders’ psychological mechanisms in the Canberra RISE Drinking-and-Driving Experiment. Law & Society Review, 41(3), 553–586.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Unnever, J. D., & Cullen, F. T. (2009). Empathetic identification and punitiveness: A middle-range theory of individual differences. Theoretical Criminology, 13(1), 283–312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Unnever, J. D., & Cullen, F. T. (2010). The social sources of American’s punitiveness: A test of three competing models. Criminology, 48(1), 99–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, S. (2008). The neglect of police unions: Exploring one of the most important areas of American policing. Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, 9(2), 95–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, S. E., & Archbold, C. A. (2018). The new world of police accountability. SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wasow, O. (2020). Agenda seeding: How 1960s black protests moved elites, public opinion and voting. American Political Science Review, 114(3), 638–659.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzer, R., & Tuch, S. A. (2006). Race and policing in America: Conflict and Reform. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wetts, R., & Willer, R. (2022). Antiracism and its discontents: The prevalence and political influence of opposition to antiracism among White Americans.

  • Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The origins of our discontents. Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wozniak, K. H., Drakulich, K. M., & Calfano, B. R. (2021). Public opinion about police weapons and equipment: An exploratory analysis. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 32(9), 960–991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, M., & Citrin, J. (2011). Saved by the stars and stripes? Images of protest, salience of threat, and immigration attitudes. American Politics Research, 39(2), 323–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study is funded by the University of South Carolina’s Advanced Support for Innovative Research Excellence (ASPIRE) with the help of Dr. Christi Metcalfe.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA

    Andrew J. Thompson

  2. University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    Christi Metcalfe

  3. University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA

    Justin T. Pickett

Authors
  1. Andrew J. Thompson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Christi Metcalfe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Justin T. Pickett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrew J. Thompson.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Thompson, A.J., Metcalfe, C. & Pickett, J.T. Should police officers who use force against peaceful protesters be punished? A national experiment. J Exp Criminol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-023-09589-3

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-023-09589-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation