ELICIA CARRILLO

            Elicia Carrillo

566 Words

 

The article, Why Whites Favor Spending More Money to Fight Crime: The Role of Racial Prejudice, intends to determine whether there exists a link between racial prejudice and the perspective that the criminal justice system needs more money to fight crime. To unveil a potential relationship, the researchers reference the 2000 General Social Survey. They center on the view of White Americans, specifically data provided by non-Hispanic White respondents. Initially, research began with 2,098 respondents, but was reduced to over 300 respondents within the sample size due to views on crime expenses, racial stereotypes and because of missing data. The dependent variable was whether the respondent thought that "Spending on halting the rising crime rate" is "too little, about right" or "too much. Those who believed "too little" was spent on crime ultimately felt that more money should be spent to reduce crime levels. This view defined the options. The article also noted that these responses did not indicate how much should be spent, or a precise value, but rather more or little should be spent. The independent variable that researchers focused on was particularly racial stereotyping about black violence. The question asked in the GSS was "Do the people in the following groups (whites, Jews, Blacks, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans) tend to be violence prone or do they tend not to be prone to violence?" Options for responses were recoded on a numerical scale from 1 (=nonviolent) to 7 (=violent).

            After analyzing the data, researchers determined that Whites who believe that African Americans are more violent are likely to seek and support more funding for crime., The results indicate that the relationship is linked to White people who are most racially prejudiced. Thus, there is a definite role of racial prejudice. This prejudice, however, does not apply to Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans. Only Blacks. Specifically, those who are perceived to be inherently violent. Another important result of the findings is that Whites' are likely to favor increasing crime spending when Blacks are violent, but not when Whites' are violent. This further supports the idea that racial stereotyping against Blacks by White people influences whether they will favor more money spent on crime.

 

            The article, White Public Opinion toward Undocumented Immigrants: Threat and Interpersonal Environment, seeks to discover the opinions towards immigration by Whites in 1996 and 2004 and explain why support for undocumented immigrants varies by each year. The research utilizes data from the GSS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census. From the GSS, researchers observe the results of the question: "How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? America should take stronger measures to exclude illegal immigrants." Response options were on a 5-point scale from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly." The primary independent variable referenced were theories of group threat. The sample size was limited to individuals who identified as White, 980 respondents in 1996 and 875 in 2004.

            The results indicated that White people were more critical of immigrants in 1996 than 2004. When comparing the percentages of the two years, fear of immigrants decreased. This could be credited to the growing presence of the Latino population in 2004. This is a concept defined by the contact principle. This is the belief that if as a society, we hope to establish more trust and less prejudice among races, society must expose themselves to immigrants and different cultures. Community demographic has to change to eliminate the fear of what is unknown.