Expert answer:Sample Measures Analytical Technique
Expert answer:THERE MUST BE NO GRAMMATICAL ERRORSNO PLAGIARISM AT ALL!! The article view is 2 page , not including the abstract.( put on the third page) . APA format . Article attached at the end. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU READ THE ARTICLE. Analyze the article very well!!. Summarize the theoretical background. Discuss the method used in the article, Sample, Measures, Analytical Technique. Results( reflect well on the importance of these findings ), and lastly the finding and conclusion. Your article review must include the following elements: 1) a brief description of the topic you have chosen; 2) a statement of the research question or topic of the article; 3) an explanation of the research methods used by the author to answer the research question; 4) a description of the main findings from the author’s research; and 5) a statement of how the findings contribute to understanding the chosen topic.In addition to these elements, papers will also be graded on the quality of writing and formatting. Your writing should consist of simple, clear, direct sentences. The papers must be double-spaced, with one-inch margins, in one of the following fonts: Arial, Calibri, Courier New, or Palatino Linotype at a font size of 11 points or Times New Roman at a font size of 12 points. Citations and references must be APA style.
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Article
A Life-course
Perspective on
Adolescents’
Attitudes to Police:
DARE, Delinquency,
and Residential
Segregation
Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency
50(4) 579-607
ª The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0022427813481977
jrcd.sagepub.com
Amie M. Schuck1
Abstract
Objectives: Describe the developmental trajectory of perceptions of the
police by youth as they transition from adolescence to young adulthood.
Method: A longitudinal experiment to evaluate the impact of the D.A.R.E.
program (N ¼ 1,773). Latent variable growth modeling was used. Results:
A dramatic decline in the favorable attitudes of youth toward the police
begins in about seventh grade. More negative perceptions of police are associated with minority racial status, negative experiences with officers, involvement in the delinquent subculture, and greater expressions of skewed legal
norms. There is a long-term positive effect of D.A.R.E. on attitudes toward
the police, particularly for African American youth. Conclusion: The study
highlights the importance of theorizing about perceptions of the police from
1
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Amie M. Schuck, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 W. Harrison Street, MC141, Chicago,
IL 60607, USA.
Email: amms@uic.edu
580
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 50(4)
a life course perspective. Findings raise new policy questions about the
long-term impact of school-based programs, such as D.A.R.E., and the role
of multiple reference groups in the formation of minorities’ attitudes. More
research is needed to gain a better understanding of the cognitive and experiential processes involved in attitude formation.
Keywords
policing, life-course theory, developmental theories, criminological theory,
prevention, juvenile delinquency, public opinion
The importance of studying attitudes toward the police is underscored by
decades of research that links attitudes to several key outcomes, including
individuals’ law-abiding behaviors (Sunshine and Tyler 2003), public
support for the allocation of resources to police agencies (Bell 1979),
evaluations of police performance drawn from the fairness model of policing (Skogan and Frydl 2003), and residents’ willingness to cooperate with
the police as coproducers of public safety under the community policing
paradigm (Skogan and Hartnett 1997). Many scholars have raised concerns
regarding the impact of aggressive police strategies on community
residents, particularly the younger residents of minority communities, and
the effects that these interactions have on the relationship between the community and the police (Brunson 2007; Carr, Napolitano, and Keating 2007;
Gau and Brunson 2010). Using arguments that are reminiscent of the
discourse about youth–police relations in the 1960s (cf. Bouma 1969), scholars have expressed their fears that the harsh treatment of younger people by
officers may produce a ‘‘lawless youth subculture’’ and create communities
in which residents are alienated from the police and are therefore unwilling
to cooperate with the police to address crime (Carr et al. 2007:446-47). In
addition, because today’s youth become tomorrow’s adults, these
controversial police strategies may generate a cycle of destructive community–police relations.
Although scholars have accumulated a sizable body of research on
attitudes toward the police (see Brown and Benedict 2002), most of what
we know comes from research on adults. Little information is available
about youths’ perceptions of the police, and virtually nothing is known
about the developmental trajectory of these perceptions as youth transition
from adolescence to adulthood. Adolescence is believed to be a critical
stage in the development of attitudes (Allport 1935). Prior to adolescence,
Schuck
581
children’s attitudes are largely obtained in a secondhand manner. Attitudes
are typically parroted from the perspectives of their caregivers. In early
adolescence, children begin to use firsthand experiences to fit the world into
their own frames of reference, and replace the value system that they copied
from their caregivers with a value system of their own (Allport 1935).
Although there is some debate about if and when political beliefs crystallize
(Flanagan and Sherrod 1998), most scholars agree that justice-related
attitudes that are formed early in life are resistant to change and exert
long-lasting effects (Bobo and Johnson 2004).
The purpose of this study is to describe the developmental trajectory of
attitudes toward the police by youth as they transition from adolescence to
adulthood. Seven hypotheses from four theoretical perspectives were tested.
One unique feature of this study is that information was obtained from a
racially diverse, noninstitutional sample of youth (N ¼ 1,773) over the
course of a seven-year time period.
Theoretical Background
Personal Encounters with Officers
Encounters with officers are believed to be qualitatively different for youth
than adults. Compared with adults, adolescents, particularly minority
adolescents, are subjected to more surveillance, harassment, and degradation by the police (Anderson 1990; Black 1980; Brunson 2007; Gau and
Brunson 2010; Stewart et al. 2009). Adolescent behavior patterns, such as
traveling in crowds, congregating on streets and public places, and cruising
in cars, raise suspicion and increase the likelihood that youth will be
stopped and questioned by officers (Bittner 1990; Black 1980; Borrero
2001; Fine et al. 2003). Furthermore, these situations allow officers to exercise a substantial amount of discretion, where the demeanor of the youth
plays a large role in determining the final outcome of the encounter (Piliavin and Briar 1964). Adolescents not only experience a greater number of
negative interactions with the police than adults, but they also have more
opportunities for positive interactions with officers through their participation in activities sponsored by youth agencies and school-based programs
(see Anderson, Sabatelli, and Trachtenberg 2007).
On the whole, findings from the research suggest that negative experiences with officers are associated with more negative attitudes toward the
police, whereas positive experiences are associated with more positive attitudes (Bazemore and Senjo 1997; Brunson 2007; Brunson and Miller 2006;
582
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 50(4)
Carr et al. 2007; Cox and Falkenberg 1987; Hurst 2007; Hurst, Frank, and
Browning 2000; Hurst, McDermott, and Thomas 2005; Jones-Brown 2000;
Leiber, Nalla, and Farnsworth 1998; Nihart et al. 2005). Far more studies
have addressed the impact of negative experiences than the influence of
positive experiences. Interestingly, evidence indicates that learning asymmetry may occur. That is, a negativity bias may exist that causes individuals
to weigh negative experiences more heavily than positive experiences when
forming attitudes toward the police (Skogan 2006).
The question remains: What makes an interaction positive or negative?
Drawing from the literature, one possible explanation revolves around the
concepts of instrumental and normative justice. Instrumental justice refers
to the favorableness of the outcome for a youth, whereas normative justice
refers to a youth’s perception of the fairness of both the distribution of outcomes (i.e., distributive justice) and the procedures that were used to
achieve the outcomes, including the officer’s behavior (Tyler 1990; Tyler
and Huo 2002). In recent years, researchers have emphasized the importance of normative justice, particularly procedural justice, for influencing
adolescents’ attitudes toward the police (Fagan and Tyler 2005; Hinds
2007). However, there exists evidence that the outcomes of youth–police
encounters are an important part of attitude formation and that instrumental
justice may be especially critical for situations in which the officer has a
significant amount of discretion in deciding the outcome (see Engel
2005). Based on the instrumental justice proposition, the following is
hypothesized:
Hypothesis 1: Adolescents who have been arrested will express more negative attitudes toward the police than adolescents who have not been arrested.
As stated above, relative to adults, youth are believed to have more opportunities for positive experiences with officers. In recent years, advocates of
the D.A.R.E. program have emphasized the positive impact of this program
on youths’ perceptions of the police. The D.A.R.E. curriculum has been
implemented in about 75 percent of U.S. schools (D.A.R.E., 1996).
Although many evaluations of D.A.R.E. have been performed, there is little
evidence that this program prevents drug use (Rosenbaum 2007). However,
findings from these evaluations indicate that participation in D.A.R.E. may
be correlated with more positive attitudes toward the police (Curtis 1999;
Ringwalt et al. 1994). Representatives of the D.A.R.E. program suggest that
the curriculum may improve youths’ perceptions of the police in the following ways: (a) by opening lines of communication between officers and
Schuck
583
youth; (b) by humanizing the police; and (c) by enabling adolescents to
observe officers engaging with youth in a helpful manner rather than in
an enforcement role (D.A.R.E. 1996). Based on the D.A.R.E. model, the
following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 2: Adolescents who had contact with officers through D.A.R.E.
will hold more positive attitudes toward the police than adolescents who did
not participate in the D.A.R.E. program.
Subcultural and Cultural Attenuation Theories
In an effort to expand our understanding of attitudes toward the police,
Leiber et al. (1998) proposed that adolescents’ attitudes might be generated
by their larger sociocultural context. Drawing from subcultural theorists
such as Cohen (1955), Miller (1958), and Cloward and Ohlin (1960), Leiber
et al. (1998) argued that negative perceptions of the police are part of the
subculture of delinquency and that the greater the youth’s commitment is
to the deviant subculture, the more likely they are to have negative attitudes
toward the police. Further, these researchers claimed that because legitimate avenues for achieving conventional metrics of success are inaccessible
to working-class and minority youth, these youth are more likely to be
exposed to a deviant subculture (Cloward and Ohlin 1960) and to adhere
to the norms and values of a deviant subculture to which they are exposed
(Cohen 1955). Using data collected from 337 male youths in Iowa, Leiber
et al. (1998) found empirical support for their hypotheses.
Although most subcultural theorists do not explicitly discuss adolescents’ attitudes toward the police, they do characterize the deviant
subculture as one that includes norms that are negativistic or in direct opposition to ‘‘respectable’’ adult society. From a subcultural perspective, adolescents hold negative attitudes toward the police not because of negative
experiences with the police, but because they belong to a peer group that
rejects all conventional forms of authority. Further, not abiding to the peer
group’s belief system places them at risk of rejection by peer group members. Based on the subculture theories perspective, it is hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 3: Greater engagement in delinquency will be related to more
negative attitudes toward the police.
In contrast to the subcultural perspective, Carr et al. (2007) suggested
that cultural attenuation might play an important role in the formation of
584
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 50(4)
youths’ attitudes. The notion of cultural attenuation, which is rooted in the
work of Kornhauser (1978), Sampson and Bartusch (1998), Anderson
(1990), and others, refers to the disuse of conventional value systems in a
community (Warner 2003). Under the cultural attenuation paradigm, youth
do not participate in the outright rejection of conventional value systems;
instead, their value system becomes attenuated. This attenuation is reflected
in the fact that the youth may report that they are intolerant of crime and
violence but simultaneously voice cynical views about the law and legal
institutions (Carr et al. 2007). Adolescents who experience this attenuated
cultural norm system will possess dissonant cognitive perceptions regarding
crime and legal institutions. Based on the cultural attenuation perspective, it
is hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 4: Adolescents who express more skewed legal norms will also
express more negative attitudes toward the police.
Comparative Conflict Theory
Race is one of the strongest predictors of attitudes toward the police.
Virtually without exception, minorities, particularly African Americans,
express more negative attitudes toward the police than Whites (for an exception, see Frank et al. 1996). Research findings also suggest that macro-level
socioeconomic factors play an important role in attitude formation and that
differences in socioeconomic status may help explain racial differences
regarding perceptions of injustice (Sampson and Bartusch 1998; Weitzer and
Tuch 2002). For example, researchers have found that compared with nonmiddle-class African Americans, more affluent African Americans are more
suspicious of the American legal system (Brooks and Jeon-Slaughter 2001),
more impatient with civil rights reform (Schuman et al. 1997), and generally
believe that African Americans are much worse off than Whites (Collins
1997). These findings suggest that perceptions of the police cannot be
explained in terms of simple racial or economic distinctions.
In an attempt to develop a theory of injustice that could explain the
contradictory findings regarding race and class, Hagan, Shedd, and Rayne
(2005) offered the ‘‘comparative conflict theory of perceived criminal
injustice.’’ This comparative conflict theory is rooted in the concept of
‘‘relative subordination’’ and emphasizes the importance of understanding
the role of reference groups and the pluralization of reference groups for
middle-class African Americans (Hagan et al. 2005).
Schuck
585
According to comparative conflict theory, race serves as an important
reference point for attitudes about injustice. However, diversity exists
within racial groups, and this diversity can be characterized on a continuum
of social similarity to the powerful dominant group (cf. Black 1976). Hagan
and his colleagues use the example of skin color and argue that darker skin
colors indicate greater distances from the dominant group. Thus, minorities
with darker skin colors, such as African Americans, will have greater
perceptions of injustice than minorities with lighter skin colors, such as
Latinos (Hagan et al. 2005).
A key aspect of this theory is the idea that reference groups are pluralized for middle-class African Americans and that the social context provides opportunities for different reference group comparisons. For
example, the existing research suggests that minorities who reside in integrated neighborhoods perceive greater negative consequences from segregation than minorities who do not live in integrated areas (Patterson
1997). According to Hagan and his colleagues, perceptions of injustice
are not driven by differential treatment but instead reflect the fact that
affluent minorities have several reference groups for comparing an actual
judicial process with the ideal system for administering justice. For example, a minority resident from a middle-class environment identifies with
not only minorities but also his or her middle-class neighbors; consequently, he or she embraces a standard of justice that is middle-class
in nature but viewed from the perspective of a minority. As a result, relative to a minority counterpart who is receiving lower quality police services, this middle-class minority individual may benefit from better
police services but may nonetheless possess more negative perceptions
of the police. Based on the comparative conflict theory, the following are
hypothesized:
Hypothesis 5: African American adolescents will express more negative attitudes toward the police than White adolescents.
Hypothesis 6:: Latino adolescents will express more negative attitudes
toward the police than White adolescents but will express more positive attitudes toward the police than African American adolescents.
Hypothesis 7: African American adolescents who live in neighborhoods
with greater percentages of White residents will demonstrate a faster
decline in their favorable attitudes toward the police than African American adolescents who live in communities with lower percentages of White
residents.
586
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 50(4)
Method
Sample
The participants for this study came from a randomized longitudinal field
experiment that was designed to evaluate the impact of the D.A.R.E.
program on adolescents’ drug use. This project was originally funded by the
Illinois State Police and was conducted by the Center for Research in Law
and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago between the years 1989
and 1996. Researchers identified 18 pairs of elementary schools that represented urban, suburban, and rural areas in Illinois. These schools were
matched by type, racial composition, the number of students with limited
English proficiency, and the percentage of youth from low-income families.
For the 12 pairs of urban and suburban schools, one of the paired schools
was randomly assigned to receive the D.A.R.E. program, and the matched
school was assigned to the control group. For the six pairs of rural schools,
random assignment was not possible due to the lack of availability of
D.A.R.E. officers; therefore, six treatment schools were selected in which
D.A.R.E. officers were already assigned, and six control schools were
selected the same counties or from nearby counties. The same variables
were used for the matching of all of the selected schools (for more information on the study design, see Rosenbaum and Hanson 1998).
The project was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the
University of Illinois at Chicago. The recruitment of participants involved
a two-step process that first recruited schools into the study and subsequently focused on recruiting adolescents from each of the participating
schools. Parental consent was obtained through passive consent procedures. Consent forms that provided information about the purpose of the
study were mailed to parents; these forms asked the recipient parents to
grant permission for their child to participate. Similar procedures were
employed to re-recruit respondents on three different occasions throughout the course of the study. A description of the sample is provided in
Table 1.1
Measures
Attitudes toward the Police. Attitudes toward the police were assessed with a
5-item measure. Participants were asked to respond to the following statements on a four-point scale that ranged from strongly agree to strongly disagree: (a) police officers do good things in my community; (b) if you give a
police officer a chance, he will be your friend; (c) most police officers are
Schuck
587
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics for the Sample.
Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3 Wave 4 Wave 5 Wave 6 Wave 7
School Year
Attrition
Grade
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Sex
Male
Female
Race
White
African
American
Latino
Other
Mother’s
education
M
SD
89–90
—
.2
35.2
64.5
.1
90–91
7.3
.3
33.5
65.8
.2
.2
91–92
10.8
92–93
15.9
.1
33.8
65.5
.3
.3
1.2
35.2
63.2
.4
93–94
33.4
94–95
38.1
.9
28.1
67.9
3.1
1.2
32.0
66.8
95–96
38.6
1.6
29.5
68.8
50.7
49.3
50.4
49.6
50.4
49.6
51.1
48.9
48.5
51.5
48.4
51.6
49.1
50.9
51.5
25.9
50.4
29.1
52.1
28.6
54.6
26.7
57.6
25.0
60.0
23.0
62.8
21.0
9.8
12.9
10. …
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