The Socioeconomic Influence on Duke Students' Perspectives of Law Enforcement

Abstract

Past research concludes that race affects people’s perspectives of the police as defined by their perceived fairness, trust, and confidence in law enforcement in which blacks tend to have more negative perceptions of the police than whites. This study surveyed Duke University students to determine whether family income within different racial groups leads to varying opinions about their home state police, Durham police, and Duke police. The population of this study was undergraduate Duke University students. I hypothesized that as family income rises, Duke students will have more positive views of home state, Durham, and Duke police. In addition, I predicted that within the negative opinions of the police, the nature of these negative feelings will vary between white and black Duke students. For example, white students will see the police as an annoying disruption to their daily life whereas black students will see the police as a more significant threat to their safety. Findings confirm that race is the largest predictor when determining one’s perspective of the police. Within racial groups, for black Duke students, as income rises, one’s perspective becomes more positive of the police in all regards of trust, confidence, and perceived fairness. However, income appears to play less of a role in white students’ perspectives of law enforcement. Finally, the survey results showed that as one evaluated more local types of police – from home state, to Durham, to Duke police – one’s perspective became more positive. Thus, the Duke police force had the greatest satisfaction rates for all students, regardless of race. I offer recommendations to law enforcement departments based on my results.