The impacts of direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experiences on the attitudes toward the police: focus on racial differences
Policing: An International Journal
ISSN: 1363-951X
Article publication date: 28 June 2021
Issue publication date: 5 October 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experiences affect students' attitudes toward the police by race and test the mediation effect of social distance on the relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the data collected from two US 4-year public universities, this study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the impacts of the key variables, direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experience, on the students' attitudes toward the police. This study also tests whether indirect negative contact with the police is a stronger factor than direct negative contacts among racial/ethnic minority people.
Findings
Results show that both direct-negative and indirect-negative contacts are stronger predictors of the dependent variable. In particular, the indirect-negative contact has significant direct and indirect effects through social distance on the dependent variable in racial minorities. The study also shows that indirect contact more strongly affects racial minorities than direct-negative contact experiences do.
Originality/value
This study is the first sophisticatedly to examine students' negative contact experiences into two variables: direct-negative and indirect-negative contacts with the police.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This work was supported by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2014 Faculty Development Research Grant, Office of the Provost; and Women's Health and Sex Differences, Lister Hill Library in part by the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine under Contract Number: HHSN3162012000028W, ICF International, INC.
Citation
Lim, H. and Lee, J.-S. (2021), "The impacts of direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experiences on the attitudes toward the police: focus on racial differences", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 44 No. 5, pp. 926-940. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-02-2021-0022
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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