An alarming study has come out of the Stanford Psychology department regarding race and crime.
Rebecca Hetey, a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford and her faculty advisor, Jennifer Eberhardt, have created a study that seems to suggest that white people may support tougher criminal?laws if their perception is that more blacks are imprisoned.
It is important to have background information when trying to understand their methodology and the overall conclusions. The key fact here, is that about 40% of the prison population is made up of African-Americans while they are only 12% of the general population of the United States.
Rebecca and Jennifer conducted two experiments involving white subjects. In the first experiment, they showed videos containing mug shots to their subjects. One video showed 25% of the mug shots as those of African-Americans and the other one showed 45%. When the videos concluded the subjects were asked if they would support a petition that would ease California’s strict sentencing laws. ?More than half of those who viewed the 25% video supported the measure, while only 27% who viewed the 45% video supported the measure. In other words, those that viewed the video containing more African-American mug shots?supported?policies easing sentencing laws at a lesser rate; and those who watched the video containing less African-American mug shots?supported the policies at a higher rate.
In the other experiment, the Stanford women took two groups of white New Yorkers and gave them differing statistical data. One group was given information saying that 40% of prisoners are black and the other group was told that 60% are black. Yet again, the group that believed?less?of the criminal population is black was?more?likely to support?more liberal criminal justice policies. These subjects were asked if they would sign a petition calling for an end to “Stop-and-Frisk.” To be specific, 33% of those who thought?a lower rate of the prison population was black were willing to support this measure. However, only 12% of those who thought blacks made up a larger percent of the crime population supported ending this policy.
These results are very troubling. Whether conscious or subconscious, this study suggests that racial attitudes definitely play a role in how whites view criminal policies and justice. ?There is something in this study that makes me believe that whites (at least these subjects)?want?to punish criminals more harshly but?only?if they are black. How else could these results be explained? How can the experimenters get such different results by changing one thing: the rates of black people that are shown as criminals. Only one factor, race, was changed and the results were altered quite dramatically.
A large portion of our nation still believes that we live in a post-racial America; that acts of racism are only individualized and structural and institutional prejudice and oppression are just things?of the past. They seem to think that the election of Barack Obama healed centuries of discrimination and setbacks for people of color! He?changed the hearts and minds of everyone in a country that force-fed racist imagery down our throats since its inception.
Except, we know this to not actually be true. There is obviously so much that minorities have to overcome. These perceptions of criminality are so severe and as we have seen in the cases of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Jonathan?Ferrell, Eric Garner, and many more, people of color innately?seem to have a dangerous and criminal label steadfastly attached to them. There is a lot of work to be done to not just change policies, but to change the ways in which we view black and brown people. Providing more positive images in the media and the news is just one step, but there are various other ways that we can try to diminish the inequality of our laws and within our thoughts.
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