Social, Cognitive, and Emotional Determinants of Racialized Social Control: An Integrated Theory of Police Brutality.

Conflict theory holds that coercive mechanisms of social control serve to protect the dominant group from minority threats. We acknowledge the insights of that argument but suggest that it overly simplifies the behavior of social control agents. A notable example involves the police, who may incur heavy costs (criminal sanctions) for using excessive force (police brutality). Certainly minority citizens are disproportionately the victims of police brutality. But why would the police risk using unnecessary force against them when they possess the authority and means to employ the force necessary to accomplish a legitimate duty? We argue that social psychological processes involving cognitions and emotions may play larger roles than group interests in triggering acts of police brutality. Social identity and stereotypes involve cognitions that allow people to categorize and respond rapidly to others. Conditioned emotions such as fear also may elicit swift behavioral responses. These interrelated processes may automatically produce unwarranted acts of aggression against those perceived as threats without intervention of rational deliberation. The difficult conditions of impoverished minority neighborhoods greatly increase the likelihood of such responses occurring. The integrated theoretical model proposed here incorporates the fundamental social, cognitive, and emotional determinants of police brutality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]