By
Joe Fletcher
Nope.
In fact a new study published in Psychological Science,
says that pointing out information I mentioned above may actually make people
support policies that encourage racial disparities in the prison industrial
complex.
The research was conducted by Stanford University psychology researchers Rebecca Hetey and Jennifer Eberhardt The research shows that, “White participants who were exposed to higher racial disparities in incarceration rates reported being more afraid of crime and more likely to support the kinds of punitive policies that exacerbate these racial disparities.”
African-Americans roughly make up 13% of the total U.S population. Despite this the number of African Americans in prison make up nearly 40% of the total prison population. Harsh penalties, such as, California’s controversial three-strikes law have helped to fuel the racist prison industrial complex.
Hetey and Eberhardt wanted test whether knowledge of racial disparities in the
prison system would increase or decrease people’s support for harsh penalties.
One experiment the researchers conducted featured a White female who asked 62
White voters to watch a video showing mug shots of male inmates.
A
portion of the test subjects watched a video where 25% of the mug shots shown
were of Black men. Another group watched a video that had 45% of the male
inmates who were shown were Black.
The test subjects were then asked to sign a real petition that would put an amendment on the ballot. The amendment would be used to make the California three-strikes law less severe. Just over half of the subjects who watched the former video signed the petition.
The test subjects were then asked to sign a real petition that would put an amendment on the ballot. The amendment would be used to make the California three-strikes law less severe. Just over half of the subjects who watched the former video signed the petition.
Only
27% of those who watched the latter video signed the petition Even of
participants thought the law was too harsh they still tended to not sign the
petition after watching the video featuring more mug shots of Black men.
A
second experiment was conducted in New York City to test against fear of crime.
they showed 164 White New Yorkers statistics about the prison population. They
read about Black inmates either in terms of the national incarceration rate
(about 40%) or the New York City rate (about 60%). Next, they were asked about
their support for the stop-and-frisk policy.
About
33% of the participants who saw the lower national statistic were willing to
sign a petition to end the policy, but only 12% of those who saw the higher
city rate of Black incarceration were willing to sign the petition.
Participants
who saw the higher rate of Black incarceration were more likely to report
concern over crime, which was associated with reluctance to sign the petition.
“Many
legal advocates and social activists seem to assume that bombarding the public
with images, statistics, and other evidence of racial disparities will motivate
people to join the cause and fight inequality,” says Hetey. “But we found that,
ironically, exposure to extreme racial disparities may make the public less,
and not more, responsive to attempts to lessen the severity of policies that
help maintain those disparities.”
Eberhardt
concludes, “Our research shows that numbers don’t always speak for themselves.
Reducing inequality takes more than simply presenting people with evidence of
extreme inequality.”