Citizen Willingness to Hold a Police Officer Criminally Responsible for the Use of Deadly Force: Examining the Correlates of Finding Guilt

Abstract

Despite increased public attention on police killings of citizens and police accountability in recent years, few studies have specifically examined the support for convicting and incarcerating a specific police officer who was accused of wrongfully killing a citizen. The current study examines the attitudes of undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university about a case involving a white police officer who worked for the university police department and recently shot and killed an unarmed Black citizen during a traffic stop. Specifically, it examines support for convicting and incarcerating this officer, who was charged but ultimately went unpunished, and the factors that are related to support for, opposition to, or neutrality towards holding the officer criminally responsible. The findings indicate that respondents who perceive police officers as soldiers in a war on crime and hold symbolically racist attitudes were more likely to oppose or be neutral about the officer being held responsible. White respondents, while not more likely to oppose the conviction and incarceration of the officer, were more likely to be neutral toward the outcome of the case, indicating that white indifference might be a major barrier to holding police officers accountable for their improper use of deadly force.