How Social Context Influences Legal Decision-Making Dissertation
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The Effect of Race, Place, and Time on Police Use of Force: How Social Context Influences Legal Decision-Making Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Charles Anthony LoFaso, M.A. Graduate Program in Sociology The Ohio State University 2020 Dissertation Committee: Professor Ryan D. King, Advisor Professor Paul E. Bellair Associate Professor Hollie Nyseth Brehm Copyright by Charles Anthony LoFaso 2020 Abstract Compared to the research investigating police use of force at the encounter-level, there are relatively fewer studies examining how neighborhood context influences the decision to use force. This dissertation adds to the research on neighborhood context through the investigation of two overarching research questions. I first examine whether neighborhood racial composition and degree of disadvantage are associated with the frequency and severity of force after encounter-level variables are controlled. Second, I examine whether the frequency or severity of force change following incidents of violence by the police or against the police. Using an interrupted time series design for this question, the study analyzes whether the trajectory of force by Rochester (N.Y.) officers was altered following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014, and by the death of RPD officer Daryl Pierson on September 3, 2014. As such, the dissertation examines the extent to which the risk of being subjected to police use of force is influenced by where and when a citizen encounters an officer. More broadly, the dissertation examines how social context influences legal decision-making, as well as the role that law, as governmental social control, plays in preserving social order. Findings indicate that both the frequency and severity of force are higher in neighborhoods with larger percentages of Black and Hispanic residents once encounter- level variables, degree of neighborhood disadvantage, and crime rates are controlled. A likely explanation for this finding is that police officers, like many Americans, including other actors in the criminal justice system, are acting on an implicit racial bias that ii characterizes Black individuals as being prone to criminality and violence. Officers perceive that disadvantaged neighborhoods present elevated threats to officer safety because more Black individuals live there. Consequently, implicit racial bias results in more frequent and severe social control in these neighborhoods. While race and place are both contextual influences on the use of force, the effect of concentrated disadvantage is indirect and is mediated by neighborhood racial composition. A primary finding of the interrupted time series analysis is that the frequency of force did not change during the 25-day period following Michael Brown’s death but did significantly increase in the 25-day period immediately after Officer Pierson’s death. Officer Pierson’s death motivated officers to use force more often during confrontations with citizens, whether out of fear for their safety, in bounded solidarity, or as vicarious retribution for Pierson’s shooting. Thereafter, as negative publicity and anti-police backlash increased in the U.S. following several more high-profile police shootings and in-custody deaths of unarmed Black males, officers significantly reduced their use of force through the end of 2015. However, officers were more punitive, as the odds of being subjected to more severe levels of force significantly increased even as the frequency of force declined. Thus, although officers entered a phase of “de-policing,” they likely remained fearful for their safety or retained a desire for retribution during citizen encounters and used excessive force to ensure a favorable outcome. iii Dedication Over the past 144 years, fifteen officers of the Rochester Police Department were killed in the line of duty. Gunfire claimed the first, Patrolman Louis Gomenginger, on July 3, 1876, and the fifteenth, Officer Daryl Pierson, on September 3, 2014. I had the privilege of knowing and working with Officer Pierson. Daryl was a highly productive police officer, and his work unquestionably made the Rochester community safer. In addition to being an exceptional police officer, Daryl was also an exceptional young man. After high school, he joined the U.S. Army and served in Afghanistan before being honorably discharged. Upon returning to his hometown of East Rochester, New York, Daryl married, started a family, and joined the Rochester Police Department. Service was a theme of his tragically short life. Today, due to the advocacy of Sen. Chuck Schumer and the late Rep. Louise Slaughter, and after President Obama granted their request, the post office in East Rochester is named in his honor. In addition to his local post office, Daryl’s name has been added to a wall at the National Police Memorial in Washington, D.C. There, Daryl’s name, and his End of Watch date are etched alongside the names and EOWs of other fallen heroes who gave their lives for their communities across the United States. Every year during National Police Week in May, officers from all over the world come to Washington, D.C. to gather at the National Police Memorial and pay tribute to the fallen. As a final tribute from his peers, the Major Crimes Unit’s conference room in the city of Rochester’s Public Safety Building is named for Daryl. To honor his sacrifice for the citizens of Rochester, I add my own tribute by dedicating this dissertation to Daryl Pierson. iv Acknowledgements I begin by thanking my advisor, Dr. Ryan King, for his mentorship and support during the four years since I arrived in Columbus, Ohio to begin graduate school. I am beyond grateful for the advice and encouragement that he generously provided during my graduate career. As my advisor, Ryan chaired my master’s committee, my candidacy exam committee, and now my dissertation committee. I readily acknowledge that his willingness to invest a significant amount of time in this role and his devotion to my success are the reasons I am completing the graduate program. Along the way, I appreciated his great sense of humor, as it made our interactions informal in a way that facilitated learning. I next thank Dr. Paul Bellair. Although I never took a course from Paul, he has guided me during every milestone in the graduate program: as a member of my thesis committee, as a member of my candidacy exam committee, and now as a member of my dissertation committee. Paul also generously shared his time, advice, and encouragement. As a student interested in neighborhood effects on homicide clearance and now police use of force, I have particularly benefitted from his expertise in neighborhood processes and social disorganization theory. His very substantive comments on this dissertation were thought provoking and improved the final product. I will be forever grateful to him for his investment in my research and willingness to invest his time and serve on my committees every time I asked. I next thank Dr. Hollie Nyseth Brehm. I had the great fortune of taking two classes from Hollie, including Teaching Sociology, a course that made me a significantly better independent instructor. Hollie served on my candidacy exam committee and now my v dissertation committee. Hollie also generously shares her time, an example of which was when she volunteered to review my practice answers to questions from previous candidacy exams. Her encouragement and constructive comments made me realize that I would pass and put me considerably at ease. Her detailed review of my draft dissertation chapters makes this dissertation a significantly better study. The members of my committee helped me transition from “raw” graduate student to scholar. I learned from them how to evaluate and apply theory to generate research questions, use social science methods to investigate them, and interpret the findings to answer important questions that interest me. No one achieves any significant goal in life without having the assistance of caring people. I have achieved a life-long goal of earning a Ph.D. because of the assistance I received from the members of my committee and am grateful for the role they played in my scholarly development at Ohio State. I also want to thank my non-Ohio State mentors, Dr. Jesenia Pizarro and Dr. William Terrill, both of Arizona State University. Because of my interest in homicide research, I contacted Jesy when she and Bill were on the faculty at Michigan State University and I was a student in the online master’s program there. Jesy is a nationally recognized expert on homicide and embraced me, then a practitioner, as one of her academic “criminology kids.” I have always been honored to be one. She invited me to work on an article with her to enhance my prospects for acceptance in graduate school. With her encouragement and assistance, I collected 15 years of homicide data from the Rochester Police Department, which formed the basis of my master’s thesis and the two articles that appear on my Vita page. Bill, who will tell you that his most important role is as Jesy’s husband and father to their son William, is a nationally recognized use of force expert. vi When in casual conversation I told Bill about how the RPD documents force in a form they call the “Subject Resistance Report,” he remarked that this data could form the basis of interesting research projects. It is thus fair to say he was the inspiration for my request to collect the use of force data that forms the basis of this dissertation. The astute reader will also note frequent references to Bill’s scholarly work in Chapters 2 and 3. I thank them for their acceptance of me, before I even applied to graduate school, as someone worthy of their time and advice.