Perceptions of the U.S. Police Among Latin-American Immigrants: A Bifocal Lens View

IF 2.1 3区社会学 Q1 CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY Race and Justice Pub Date : 2022-10-09 DOI:10.1177/21533687221130277

Hyeyoung Lim, Nadejda Bontcheva-Loyaga

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

The current study aimed to identify Latin-American immigrants’ bifocal lens views of the U.S. police and compare them to their contact experiences with their home-country police. We performed semi-structured interviews with twenty-one Latin-American immigrants who have resided in the Birmingham metropolitan area in Alabama. An inductive analysis approach was employed to analyze the qualitative data. The results showed that the Latin-American immigrants’ direct contact experience with the U.S. police has mainly been positive, but they still felt targeted. Even if their indirect experiences lead them to perceive a violent and biased image of the U.S. police force, participants appreciated the U.S. police as honest and not corrupt. Besides, while most participants expressed willingness to report crimes, they simultaneously recognized that other Latin-American immigrants would not feel comfortable reporting crimes due to the fear of deportation. Finally, we found that the perception of the U.S. police among Latin-American immigrants was primarily the result of the juxtaposition of the U.S. police's professionalism against their home-country police. We further discuss policy implications and study limitations in this study.

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拉丁美洲移民对美国警察的认知：双焦点视角

目前的研究旨在确定拉丁美洲移民对美国警察的双焦点视角，并将其与他们与母国警察的接触经历进行比较。我们对21位居住在阿拉巴马州伯明翰大都会区的拉丁美洲移民进行了半结构化访谈。采用归纳分析法对定性数据进行分析。调查结果显示，拉丁美洲移民与美国警方的直接接触经历主要是积极的，但他们仍然感到有针对性。即使他们的间接经历使他们对美国警察产生暴力和偏见的印象，但参与者仍然赞赏美国警察的诚实和不腐败。此外，虽然大多数与会者表示愿意举报犯罪，但他们同时认识到，其他拉丁美洲移民由于害怕被驱逐出境而不愿举报犯罪。最后，我们发现拉丁美洲移民对美国警察的看法主要是美国警察的专业精神与其母国警察并置的结果。我们进一步讨论了本研究的政策意义和研究局限性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Race and Justice Multiple-

CiteScore

5.50

自引率

19.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Race and Justice: An International Journal serves as a quarterly forum for the best scholarship on race, ethnicity, and justice. Of particular interest to the journal are policy-oriented papers that examine how race/ethnicity intersects with justice system outcomes across the globe. The journal is also open to research that aims to test or expand theoretical perspectives exploring the intersection of race/ethnicity, class, gender, and justice. The journal is open to scholarship from all disciplinary origins and methodological approaches (qualitative and/or quantitative).Topics of interest to Race and Justice include, but are not limited to, research that focuses on: Legislative enactments, Policing Race and Justice, Courts, Sentencing, Corrections (community-based, institutional, reentry concerns), Juvenile Justice, Drugs, Death penalty, Public opinion research, Hate crime, Colonialism, Victimology, Indigenous justice systems.