Crime Quiz

White Perceptions of Whether African-Americans and Hispanics are Prone to Violence and Support for the Death Penalty

            The methods that were used in this article were the 1990 and 2000 General Social Surveys (526).

            The findings from the 1990 GSS included that there was indeed a relationship between white individuals who believed that both African-Americans and Hispanics were prone to violence and support for the death penalty (531). This at first shocked me, but I watched a documentary shortly after reading this article about a black man who spent approximately 30 years on death row, and was wrongfully accused and convicted. It turns out that the cops held a certain prejudice towards African-American individuals and they planted evidence to get him convicted, but it wasn't until about 15 years later when a paralegal discovered certain faults in both the prosecution and forensics. This case had occurred during the 1970's. This shocked me because when police men and women and lawyers take their oath to protect and serve the community, they also are supposed to ensure that justice will be served. They aren't supposed to let their personal beliefs set forth into the workplace. I can't see or imagine how any cop, detective, prosecutor, lawyer, judge, or etc, no matter what your race or socio-economic background is what to wrongfully convict another person just because they are a different minority. In the 2000 GSS, whites view of blacks and Hispanics being violent prone did not significantly predict favoring the death penalty, which that was an interesting fact to read. It makes me wonder what happened during those ten years to cause people to change their beliefs.

            The findings also revealed that an individual's gender and political affiliation had a significant impact on support for the death penalty. If you were a man or identified as being a conservative, you tended to support the death penalty (531). This didn't shock me because I have a lot of family who are conservative and support the death penalty and are from good ol Texas. Men tend to be portrayed as angry and protective of what is theirs, in a case involving the death penalty it would imply that a family member close was murdered. Meaning that the alpha male would be demanding and fighting that the state and prosecution seek the death penalty.

            The findings revealed that if you were older and attended church on a more frequent basis, it meant that you were less likely to support the death penalty. This also didn't shock me because if you attend church regularly you believe in God and the bible. The bible states that God is the only one who can determine when it is a person's time to die.

 

Historical Events and Spaces of Hate: Hate Crimes Against Arabs and Muslims in post 9-11

            The methods in this article included: FBI Uniform Crime Reports for 2001-2002, U.S. Census, Glenmary Research Center, and finally websites of various organizations for Arab advocacy (27).

            The findings revealed that after the terrorist attack on 9-11-01 hate crimes amongst Arabs and Muslims had increased from 517-1,502 (33). Even though Arabs and Muslims were the target of hate crimes after 9-11, hate crimes that involved whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians had decreased (33). This unfortunately didn't shock me because 9/11 still has it's impact on individuals who fly anywhere. It does for me. I have nothing against Arabs, but I am constantly worried when I fly if a hijacking of the plane will occur, and that no one will no what happened to me or the passengers that boarded the plane.

            The findings also reveal that population is a factor of the number of incidents of hate crimes amongst Arabs and Muslims. After 9-11, cities and towns with large populations of Arab and Muslims experienced more hate crimes (35-36).

Erisa Holguin CRIME quiz

Erisa Holguin; 344 words

The web article focusing on the views of Whites and how they correspond violence with African Americans is trying to show us how Whites view Blacks as well as Hispanics and if this has any type of affect on capital punishment. One small method that the article focuses on is trying to depict stereotypes on people when penalizing someone with the death penalty in the years of 1990 and 2000. Focusing on the stereotypes and if these views affect sentencing of the death penalty, with the data contained, the article focuses on the methods of interviewing Whites to depict these views on violence to try and establish if their own views affect the death penatly. The interviews focused on racial prejudice and used variables such as covariates which concluded particular reasons of why people viewed the death penalty they way that they did. In results of the data collected, the article resulted in Whites supporting capital punishment due to views of being prejudice; being that two years were conducted, 1990 and 2000, in our results overall, information was gathered and collected to distinguish White views of prejudice and how they do in fact affect capital punishment following with the death penalty.

In another study, focusing on Who Lives and Dies on Death Row, focuses on how views of people and how racial characteristics affect the sentencing of death penalties, almost similar to the first. Instead of focusing on particular surveys, this one focuses on the sentencing in Texas which can be viewed to depict how the sentencings were determined and if they were established because of outside, stereotype factors. The methods included focuses on the sentencing outcomes as well as sentence reliefs where here we can view the indicators of the sentencing, In result of these methods, we can establish that there are many indicators when sentencing someone to the death penalty whether it is race, age, gender, etc. Nonetheless, in this particular study, penalizing people may not always focus on race but other factors are a part of sentencing a victim as well.

Crystal Medrano

                                                                                                            Crystal Medrano

                                                                                                                     590 words

Brutal borders? Examining the treatment of deportees during arrest and detention

The study examined and explored situational, ecological and organizational approaches that contribute to understanding the experiences of deportee's and measure the use of justified or excessive force, verbal harassment, procedural failings and treatment by trained and local personnel. Data was gathered through El Salvador's "Bienvenido a Casa," organization. It was organized and financed by the Center for Immigration Research at the University of Houston, and directed by Scott Phillips, at the University of Denver. Research took place at BAC's job placement meetings with deportees, where representatives interviewed a random sample of deportees. The interviewers, former Salvadoran deportees, were trained and conducted interviews from June 2002 to December 2002. Deportees were selected randomly and those that agreed were assured discretion, interviewed at their homes and responses would be documented to minimize fear. In all, they were able to gather 300 interviews from young men who were around 29 years old and had spent about 4 months to a year detained.  Demographic predictors of force were measured based on arrest and detention.

 The findings found that excessive force was commonly used when Salvadoran deportees were arrested and detained. It was found that 81out 92 cases used excessive force despite not resisting at time of the arrest. Also, Salvadoran deportees experienced more excessive force than U.S citizens.

            Moreover, arrest predictors that were significant to the use of excessive force, was age and authorities doing the arrest. Local police use more excessive force than do trained federal authorities. Significant detention predictors were age and length of detainment. Being detained 4 months or more, increased the chance of receiving mistreatment. It was reported that deportees did not have adequate resource while being detained and no measure of contact. Verbal harassment such as racial slurs and procedural failings occurred very often during both encounters. Hence, it was found that having legal counsel can lower experiencing excessive force.

 

"White Perceptions of Whether African Americans and Hispanics are Prone to Violence and Support for the Death Penalty"

The focus was to examine any changes in 1990 and 2000 among Whites supporting the death penalty and the influence of their own racial-ethnic preconceptions and stereotypical views towards African Americans and Hispanics being more violent/criminal prone than their own group.

Data was gathered from the General Social Survey, directed by the NORC. Respondents were only White adults, who had been chosen through a sample of U.S households. 1990 and 2000 were specifically analyzed, because the violent crime rate differed. A "white centric" measurement of racial and ethnic stereotypes was used, asking whites to rate their own likelihood to use violent behaviors, as well as the likelihood of African Americans and Hispanics. The goal was to understand the extent of whites viewing Africans and Hispanics as more violent than those of their own race group. Research was dependent on whites favoring or not favoring the death penalty for those convicted of murder, measuring for vindictive attitudes. Demographics were used as controlled predictor measures.

            Findings found that having racial and ethnic prejudice did influence whites support for the death penalty in 1990 and 2000. In 1990, it was seen that if whites did believe that African and Hispanics were more violent then, they would most likely support capital punishment, but by 2000 that relationship did change. The change was explained by how whites perceive minority violent behaviors and their own expectations of what is tolerable. It was found that the belief whites had about African Americans and Hispanics being more violent than their own group decreased from 1990 (15%) to 2000 (5%). Therefore, there is a connection between race and having vindictive attitudes, as well as supporting the death penalty.

Samantha Sparks

Article #1 – "White Perceptions of Whether African Americans and Hispanics are Prone to Violence and Support for the Death Penalty" by James D Unnever and Francis T Cullen.

 

            In this article, they used data between 1990 and 2000 from the GSS that was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) (526). In this survey they conducted interview of adults that were a sample of households in the U.S. (526-527). They used this data because the focus was to see if Whites believed that Hispanics and African Americans were more violence prone than Whites (527).  In their study, they asked whites whether they favor or oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder and they were given the options to respond with; "favor," "oppose," and "don't know" (527). For this question, 7.5 % of the respondent's answered "don't know" (527).  When asking these questions, they discovered that if individuals are offered life without the possibility of parole, support for the death penalty decreases (527).  The next question the respondents were asked to rate different racial groups on how prone to violence they were from 1 to 7 (528). The results from this question showed that Whites perceive Hispanics and African Americans to be more violent prone than members of their own race (528).

            In conclusion, the results of the relationship between support for the death penalty and racial-ethnic stereotypes showed that there was more support for the death penalty from Whites that hold on to the negative stereotype that African Americans are more prone to violence than members of their own race; same for Hispanics (531). Specifically, in 1990, Whites believed that African Americans were 15 times more prone to violence and Hispanics were 7 times more prone to violence than members of their own race (532-533). In 2000, the numbers dropped a little showing that whites believed that African Americans were 4.5 times more prone to violence and Hispanics were 2 times more prone than Whites (533). On the other hand, Whites stereotypes of African Americans and Hispanics as being more prone to violence didn't expressively predict support for the death penalty (534).

 

Unnever, James D, and Francis T Cullen. "White Perceptions of Whether African Americans and

 Hispanics Are Prone to Violence and Support for the Death Penalty." Journal of

Research in Crime and Delinquency 49.4 (2012): 519-44. Web.

 

 

Article #2 – "Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime" by Lincoln Quillian and Devah Pager

 

            In the study of the Chicago Crime Factors and Neighborhood decline, they used telephone surveys conducted in eight Chicago community areas with about 3,300 heads of household (726). They chose these communities based on their diversity in: crime rates, racial composition, and property values (726).  By using random-digit dialing, they screened for street name and block number and chose 400 heads of household in each community area (726). In the survey they asked 2,796 respondents about their perception of their neighborhood's level of crime (726).

            In conclusion, the results show that perceived crime among neighborhoods were directly associated with the percentage of young black men (747). Also, the best predictors of the apparent severity of neighborhood crime is the percentage of young black men (747). This shows that race and crime have a powerful influence on the perceptions of neighborhood crime are greater with mental association than an actual association (748).

 

Quillian, Lincoln, and Devah Pager. "Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial

Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime 1." American Journal of Sociology

107.3 (2001): 717-67. Web.

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