Routine police dispatches to prejudice-driven civilian calls harm intergroup relations even without violence
Evidence
Interactions between police officers and suspects do not always involve decisions to shoot or to use violence more generally. In cases such as the one involving “Barbeque Becky,” police officers quickly realized that the woman’s concerns stemmed from prejudiced beliefs and they did not proceed to use violence or arrest anyone. Yet, regardless of the outcome, such interactions are detrimental to intergroup relations, as officers are obligated to report to the scene of the alleged crime and figure out where the conflict originated from. Even if police officers have the best intentions during these interactions, minority individuals are still the ones being interrogated by law enforcement officers for, sometimes, simply going about their day. Furthermore, it is perhaps needless to say that these interactions fall under the category of negatively valenced contact and thus have the potential to hold intergroup relations at a standstill, if not worsen them. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 294
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in small acts of decorum — here the small act is a prejudiced civilian calling police on someone merely existing.
- SEED: Angles toward the ‘Barbeque Becky’ phenomenon — where a civilian weaponizes police as a tool of racial harassment, not violence but control.