Differing Perceptions of Criminal Justice and Views of Law Enforcement: A Cluster-Analytic Approach to Racial-Ethnic Identities

Race and ethnicity within psycholegal research have often been treated as nominal variables which ignores their rich within-cultural diversity and can sometimes lead to sweeping pejorative conclusions (e.g., higher prevalence of arrests). The development of several salient measures of racial-ethnic attitudes-such as the CERIS-A and MEIM-has sparked a refocusing on dimensional perspectives of race and ethnicity. This refocus becomes especially important when examining views of law enforcement and criminal justice in light of unwarranted deaths of minoritized groups while in police custody. The current study recruited a juror-eligible, online community sample (i.e., MTurk) to study their views of justice and police. Using the seven subscales of the CERIS-A, four cluster groups were identified that spanned participants' race and ethnicity. Unique patterns emerged when comparing the four groups. For example, the cluster high on both multiculturalism and their own racial-ethnic identity had far more negative views of police conduct regarding its lawfulness and fairness. Further differences emerged for views of criminal justice including the death penalty. The research implications of these findings were discussed.