Intersectionality of race, class, and gender in predicting police satisfaction

Abstract

Although an intersectional approach has been taken by various social scientists to examine criminal justice issues, our literature review reveals that, to date, no studies have explored citizen perceptions of police from this perspective. As researchers, we challenge the convenience of using merely collective demographic measures; instead, we suggest that overlooking social class, gender, and race subgroup interactions masks important variations in patterns and etiological understandings of public attitudes toward the police. Using data obtained from citizens who had recent contact with police, we take an intersectional approach to examine the main and combined effects of gender, social class, and race on citizen perceptions of police. The main purpose of this study is to address a significant gap in literature.

Keywords:

• Intersectionality
• attitudes toward police
• racial minorities
• gender

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ahmet Kule

Ahmet Kule is an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. His primary research interests include police integrity, attitudes toward police, police body-worn cameras, national security, terrorism, hate crimes, and comparative probation systems.

Vic W. Bumphus

Vic W. Bumphus was a full professor of criminal justice at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. His primary research interests include police accountability, criminal justice privatization, and race, class, gender, and criminal justice outcomes. Unfortunately, he passed away during the writing of this manuscript.

Gale Iles

Gale Iles is an associate professor at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Her current research interests include cross-national crime, immigration/migration, racial/ethnic inequality in the criminal justice systems and sentencing.