Stay Cool, Hang Loose, Admit Nothing¹

¹This refers to Basement 5, arguably the first black punk-inspired rock band, often described as hugely influential and groundbreaking. Starting out in London around 1978, ‘The Basements' were an innovative and highly original post-punk group who created a kind of politically charged, futurist dub. The lyrics were an attempt to reflect the situation of young people in Britain in the era of Thatcherism, high unemployment, strikes, racism, and working-class poverty (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=137956540).

: Race, Intergroup Contact, and Public-Police Relations

Abstract

Drawing on the contact hypothesis of Allport (1954) and Pettigrew (1998) we examined whether public-police contact, among White and Black university students in Britain, mediated between participant race and perceived racism of police and cooperation with police, respectively. Study 1 (N = 105) showed this to be the case for quality, but not quantity of contact. High-quality contact mitigated the negative effects of being Black on greater perceived racism and lower cooperation. Study 2 (N = 130) assessed a general view of police and desired closeness to police as dependent variables and investigated the moderating potential of racial identification. Higher-quality and lower quantity of contact were associated with a more positive view of police and higher desired closeness. Identification moderated the effects of race on quantity of contact, view of police, and desired closeness, with negative effects driven by high identification.

Notes

²In the UK, the police have special powers to ‘stop and search' individuals who they suspect of having committed a crime. In principle, the police can only detain members of the public in order to carry out a search when certain conditions have been met (Home Office, 2004).

³We should note here that it has been suggested (e.g., Hurwitz & Peffley, 2005) that Black people might actually overestimate levels of racism in the police force and unfairness in the criminal justice system while Whites tend to underestimate them.

⁴It should be noted that there are currently only 7.4% of officers in the Metropolitan Police Service in London that are Black or Asian (Metropolitan Police Service, 2006). Hence, most public-police contact appears to be White police officers having contact with Black members of the public. The crossing of the two intergroup relationships of race and police-public are examined in more detail in Eller, Abrams, Imara, Viki, and Green (2006).

⁵Unfortunately, for Studies 1 and 2, we did not keep records of participant refusal rates. Neither did we allow participants the option to indicate that they were bi-racial. The racial composition of the two samples is not representative of the student populations at the universities at which data were collected. Rather, we over-sampled Black participants. However, the universities are integrated into the City of London, where 29% of residents are classified as non-White, according to the 2001 census. Hence, participants were city dwellers rather than campus students. The recruitment process did not focus on race (participants were simply approached and asked whether they would participate in a questionnaire study), such that it is unlikely that respondents' race was made salient through the recruitment as such. Data were collected as part of the last two authors' MSc dissertations, hence the sample sizes were limited by time constraints.

⁶We included race of offender as a covariate/moderator, counterbalancing White and Black offenders in the scenarios, something that has not been done before. However, race of offender had no significant effects on the two criterion variables and will thus not be discussed further.

¹These are standardized values. Non-standardized values: amount of contact in daily life: M = 2.85, SD = 1.87, frequency of contact (4-point scale): M = 1.91, SD = 1.04 (51% of respondents reported contact at least 1–2 times a month).

²Blacks above diagonal, Whites below diagonal.

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ∗∗∗p < .001; race was coded as 1 = White and 2 = Black.

⁷The reliability of the quantity of contact composite measure is rather low. However, principal components analysis showed that all three items loaded on a single factor (explaining more than 50% of variance) and the new neighborhood question actually loaded higher on the factor than one of the other items, so the relatively low reliability does not seem to be due to the new item. To check whether the neighborhood item alters the results of the path analyses, we performed a mediation analysis with the three quantity of contact items as separate mediators (and race as predictor variable and negative view of police and desired closeness as dependent variables). These analyses revealed that while race significantly predicted all three quantity of contact variables, the path was strongest for the neighborhood item; moreover, the neighborhood item was the only one to significantly predict both negative view of police (significant mediation) and desired closeness (non-significant mediation).

Note. ¹These are standardized values. Non-standardized values: amount of contact in daily life: M = 2.09, SD = 1.51, frequency of contact (4-point scale): M = 1.59, SD = .86 (39% reported contact at least 1–2 times a month), contact in neighborhood: M = 2.70, SD = 2.01 (21% of respondents reported some contact with police in their neighborhood).

²Blacks above diagonal, Whites below diagonal.

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ∗∗∗p < .001; race was coded as 1 = White and 2 = Black.

⁸We performed two supplementary moderation analyses. Firstly, we examined the interaction effects of quantity x quality of contact, expecting high amounts of positive contact to have beneficial intergroup outcomes and high amounts of negative contact to have detrimental intergroup consequences. In Study 1, the quantity x quality interaction term did not have any significant effects on perceived racism of the police and willingness to cooperate with police (both βs < .07, both ps > .50). In Study 2, the interaction term did not significantly predict perceived social distance, β = − .10, t = − .86, p = .39. However, it predicted negative view of the police, β = − .31, t = − .2.59, p = .01. Analyses of simple slopes revealed that quantity of contact was associated with a more negative view of the police when quality of contact was high, β = .62, t = 3.98, p < .001, but not when quality of contact was low, β = .16, t = 1.40, p = .17. This is contrary to the predictions and may seem counter-intuitive at first. However, it is plausible that high quality, close intergroup contact with individual police officers not representative of (and probably critical of) an institution that, as a whole, tends to be racist, may be linked to negative views of this institution. In a second, supplementary moderation analysis we examined the interactive effect of race x sex on contact and outcome variables, expecting Black men to report higher-quantity, but lower-quality contact with police and more detrimental outcome variables than Black women or White men and women. In Study 1, there were no significant main effects of sex on quantity or quality of contact. In terms of the dependent variables, women reported higher perceptions of police racism, β = .19, t = 2.03, p = .045, but also higher willingness to cooperate with police investigations, β = .42, t = 4.98, p < .001. As expected, there were two significant interaction effects of race x sex on quantity of contact, β = − .33, t = − 3.50, p = .001, and willingness to cooperate, β = − .24, t = − 2.92, p = .004. Analyses of simple slopes revealed that for men, being Black was associated with higher amounts of contact, β = .55, t = 4.24, p < .001, while for women race did not have any effects, β = − .15, t = − 1.15, p = .25. Not quite consistently, for women being Black was related to decreased cooperation with police, β = − .55, t = − 4.80, P < .001, whereas for men race did not have any effects, β = − .08, t = − .68, p = .50. However, this effect was driven by the high willingness to cooperate for White women (M = 4.19) relative to the other three groups (Ms all below 2.7). In Study 2, there were no significant race x sex interactions and there was a single significant main effect; women reported higher quality of contact than men.

¹This refers to Basement 5, arguably the first black punk-inspired rock band, often described as hugely influential and groundbreaking. Starting out in London around 1978, ‘The Basements' were an innovative and highly original post-punk group who created a kind of politically charged, futurist dub. The lyrics were an attempt to reflect the situation of young people in Britain in the era of Thatcherism, high unemployment, strikes, racism, and working-class poverty (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=137956540).