The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Student Police Unity League as an effective program at fostering more positive views of the police from black citizens operating by the core tenants provided by Intergroup Contact Theory. It was expected that black students who participated in the Student Police Unity League would report higher levels of trust, legitimacy, willingness to work with the police, outcome justice, and lower level of perceived racial profiling. While the majority of the findings did not reach statistical significance at the .05 level, participation in the Student Police Unity league did lead to better views of police in terms of outcome justice and legitimacy. However, trust, profiling, and willingness to work with the police unexpectedly had inverse results. / Master of Science / The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Student Police Unity League as an effective program at fostering more positive views of the police from black citizens operating by the core tenants provided by Intergroup Contact Theory. Intergroup Contact Theory suggested that positive effects of intergroup (between two or more distinguishable groups) contact occur in contact situations characterized by four key conditions: equal status, intergroup cooperation, common goals, and support by social and institutional authorities. It was expected that black students who participated in the Student Police Unity League would report higher levels of trust, legitimacy (the idea of being treated fairly), willingness to work with the police, outcome justice (perceived police effectiveness), and lower level of perceived racial profiling. While the majority of the findings did not reach statistical significance at the .05 level, participation in the Student Police Unity league did lead to better views of police in terms of outcome justice and legitimacy. However, trust, profiling, and willingness to work with the police unexpectedly had inverse results.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/78161 |
| Date | 23 September 2016 |
| Creators | Frazier, Joseph B. |
| Contributors | Sociology, Hawdon, James E., Hughes, Michael D., Fuller, Ted |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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