NCJ Number
195554
Journal
Social Forces Volume: 80 Issue: 4 Dated: June 2002 Pages: 1223-1251
Date Published
June 2002
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This study assessed the relationships between social divisions that are likely to have political consequences and police officer killings.
Abstract
Differences in economic resources contribute to political exclusion, relative deprivation, and perceptions that social arrangements are unjust. Enhanced violence against the State officials charged with controlling the underclass should be more likely where economic and political subordination is greatest. These explanations imply that a greater use of lethal force against the police can be expected in economically or racially stratified cities. The theoretical debates about the political content of crime include the notion that many disorderly political acts and much criminal behavior are indistinguishable because these acts are jointly motivated by a sense of injustice. This study used an estimator designed to analyze unusual events such as officer killings in cities rather than States. It analyzed 165 cities with a population greater than 100,000 in 1980 and used data from that year or from 1979 (for income data) for the explanatory variables. Economic inequality was measured with a Gini index computed by the census on household incomes, while Black-white differences in economic resources were assessed with the ratio of Black-to-white median household incomes. The results showed that two theoretically important political effects always explained these killings, yet other findings should not be ignored. Poverty, crowding, and unemployment were unrelated to these deaths, but the evidence about family disruptions was mixed. Officers were more likely to be killed in cities with higher divorce rates, but the presence of female-headed families did not explain these events. The findings indicate that cities with the highest violent crime rates have more officers killed. Deadly force against State officials was also more likely in larger cities. The number of officers killed is greater in cities where the gap in racial economic resources is most pronounced, but the presence of a Black mayor reduces these killings, and neither relationship is trivial. The same political factors continue to explain serious violence against the police when a different statistical approach is used to analyze the far more common injurious assaults. 4 tables, 14 notes, 65 references