u/eumemics

https://preview.redd.it/jjq39vq0qcvg1.png?width=598&format=png&auto=webp&s=04a44389318c54a6c262983d125b632583f3ec2e

Disclaimer: I'm an independent scholar focused on political polarization, this work is not peer reviewed, and is at this point only published on Reddit.

Police brutality and race

We asked 156 subjects to assign a sentence to a case of a police officer shooting an unarmed man. Half the people read about a black cop that killed a white man, and the other half read the reverse. We wanted to find out: does race play a role in the sentence assignment? How will politics play into this: are leftists going to be harsh on the white cop? Is the right going to be harsh on the black cop? Would either side be color blind and punish equally?  

What is your guess? Are Americans going to assign a larger sentence to the black or the white cop? How will politics play into this?

Results: 
Punishment assignment varied wildly.

https://preview.redd.it/c2e2x0bbqcvg1.png?width=615&format=png&auto=webp&s=0226b3e9b1dbdbc568477ff85d0a029860fbdcf3

So was there an overall racial bias? Yes. about 50% greater harshness towards the white cop. overall the average sentence was 8.2 years in prison for the black cop and 12.3 years for the white cop. (p=.01)

Did politics play a role here? On average, no. there was no significant relationship between political identity and assigned punishment when we looked at the entire political spectrum. 

https://preview.redd.it/8d2pvaxxrcvg1.png?width=1418&format=png&auto=webp&s=cebbef61492b73a28ce0752580c8dfdc9b38f641

But a closer post-hoc look shows an interesting picture: the only discernible significant trend across the political spectrum is the following: white cop killing an unarmed black man is significantly correlated with politics but only within the left. (r=0.3)

https://preview.redd.it/9swfj22jdevg1.png?width=444&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bb1b21847dfe621257a4f7577dd36a5eebbd34f

This is the only “politicized” aspect. Many more far left people gave life in prison to the white cop. The closer you get to the center, the less punitive people get to the white cop. No political trends are visible about the black cop. And no general patterns across the entire political spectrum reached significance. 

Blue lives matter?
We wanted to see how much concern for police lives had to do with the sentence assignment. There is a mild correlation between politics and perceived tragedy in the death of a police officer while on duty. (people on the right perceive it as more tragic than those on the left, r=0.29) Was there any relationship between sympathy for the danger of being a cop to the assigned sentence for the shooting mistake? No! None whatsoever. Completely independent. 

Belief in punishment
Then we wanted to take a closer look at the ideological underpinnings of the sentence assignment. We asked several questions aiming to evaluate “belief in punishment” questions such as “longer sentences deter crime”, “punishment only makes children act up” (reverse scale) etc. We wanted to know if people who assign larger sentences believe in the effectiveness of punishment (since they believe in deterrence) or if the opposite is true (perceiving the police as the bad guys for being a punitive institution)

https://preview.redd.it/6uyf4zcyqcvg1.png?width=630&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca3ec1dad5a9c6ea8635792837b339fc3fe19439

Though the trend was not significant, it appears to be headed in an ironic direction: people who let the cop go free, tend to believe in punishment, those who gave life in prison, don’t perceive punishment as very effective. But we cannot draw this conclusion, even though the average sentence differences was similar to race (about 4 more years in prison assigned by those who do not believe in punishment) given the high variance in the sample. 

conclusion: We found no evidence for white racial privilege. We found the opposite. Not even on the right did we find evidence for such bias. The only political trend we found was on the left side of the spectrum: the farther to the left you were the more punitive you got towards the white cop. People on the right certainly believe in punishment more than those on the left, but this would not necessarily compel them to assign harsher sentences to a police officer who made a mistake. 

Limitations: our sample was very much skewed to the left, though we have no reason to think this skewed the results in a particular direction. However, conclusions about the right side of the political landscape are limited due to insufficient number of subjects. For comparison's sake we need to better discern whether the race of the victim or the perpetrator is the one that leads to a greater punishment assignment.  

https://preview.redd.it/jjq39vq0qcvg1.png?width=598&format=png&auto=webp&s=04a44389318c54a6c262983d125b632583f3ec2e

Disclaimer: I'm an independent scholar focused on political polarization, this work is not peer reviewed, and is at this point only published on Reddit.

Police brutality and race

We asked 156 subjects to assign a sentence to a case of a police officer shooting an unarmed man. Half the people read about a black cop that killed a white man, and the other half read the reverse. We wanted to find out: does race play a role in the sentence assignment? How will politics play into this: are leftists going to be harsh on the white cop? Is the right going to be harsh on the black cop? Would either side be color blind and punish equally?  

What is your guess? Are Americans going to assign a larger sentence to the black or the white cop? How will politics play into this?

Results: 
Punishment assignment varied wildly.

https://preview.redd.it/c2e2x0bbqcvg1.png?width=615&format=png&auto=webp&s=0226b3e9b1dbdbc568477ff85d0a029860fbdcf3

So was there an overall racial bias? Yes. about 50% greater harshness towards the white cop. overall the average sentence was 8.2 years in prison for the black cop and 12.3 years for the white cop. (p=.01)

Did politics play a role here? On average, no. there was no significant relationship between political identity and assigned punishment when we looked at the entire political spectrum. 

https://preview.redd.it/8d2pvaxxrcvg1.png?width=1418&format=png&auto=webp&s=cebbef61492b73a28ce0752580c8dfdc9b38f641

But a closer post-hoc look shows an interesting picture: the only discernible significant trend across the political spectrum is the following: white cop killing an unarmed black man is significantly correlated with politics but only within the left. (r=0.3)

https://preview.redd.it/9swfj22jdevg1.png?width=444&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bb1b21847dfe621257a4f7577dd36a5eebbd34f

This is the only “politicized” aspect. Many more far left people gave life in prison to the white cop. The closer you get to the center, the less punitive people get to the white cop. No political trends are visible about the black cop. And no general patterns across the entire political spectrum reached significance. 

Blue lives matter?
We wanted to see how much concern for police lives had to do with the sentence assignment. There is a mild correlation between politics and perceived tragedy in the death of a police officer while on duty. (people on the right perceive it as more tragic than those on the left, r=0.29) Was there any relationship between sympathy for the danger of being a cop to the assigned sentence for the shooting mistake? No! None whatsoever. Completely independent. 

Belief in punishment
Then we wanted to take a closer look at the ideological underpinnings of the sentence assignment. We asked several questions aiming to evaluate “belief in punishment” questions such as “longer sentences deter crime”, “punishment only makes children act up” (reverse scale) etc. We wanted to know if people who assign larger sentences believe in the effectiveness of punishment (since they believe in deterrence) or if the opposite is true (perceiving the police as the bad guys for being a punitive institution)

https://preview.redd.it/6uyf4zcyqcvg1.png?width=630&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca3ec1dad5a9c6ea8635792837b339fc3fe19439

Though the trend was not significant, it appears to be headed in an ironic direction: people who let the cop go free, tend to believe in punishment, those who gave life in prison, don’t perceive punishment as very effective. But we cannot draw this conclusion, even though the average sentence differences was similar to race (about 4 more years in prison assigned by those who do not believe in punishment) given the high variance in the sample. 

conclusion: We found no evidence for white racial privilege. We found the opposite. Not even on the right did we find evidence for such bias. The only political trend we found was on the left side of the spectrum: the farther to the left you were the more punitive you got towards the white cop. People on the right certainly believe in punishment more than those on the left, but this would not necessarily compel them to assign harsher sentences to a police officer who made a mistake. 

Limitations: our sample was very much skewed to the left, though we have no reason to think this skewed the results in a particular direction. However, conclusions about the right side of the political landscape are limited due to insufficient number of subjects. For comparison's sake we need to better discern whether the race of the victim or the perpetrator is the one that leads to a greater punishment assignment.