Kelly Welch
Associate Professor, Villanova University
Key Findings
- Individuals who typify criminals as disproportionately Hispanic were more likely to support punitive crime control policies.
- This relation remained statistically significant after controlling for individual characteristics, such as stereotyping Blacks as criminals, being racially prejudiced, being concerned about crime, perceiving crime as disproportionately violent, fearing criminal victimization, and being ideologically conservative.
- It also held after controlling for race, ethnicity, gender, age, educational achievement, and parental status.
- The association between Hispanic typification of crime and support for harsh crime control also maintained significance after controlling for effects of state-level factors, such as Hispanic threat (Hispanic composition of state of residence, whether state of residence bordered Mexico), percentage of state residents born in Latin America, percentage of immigrants in state, relative size of state’s Black population, national region, property and violent crime rates, and unemployment rates.
Description
In the article, “The Typification of Hispanics as Criminals and Support for Punitive Crime Control Policies,” Kelly Welch examined whether individuals who associate Hispanics with crime are more likely to support harsh criminal policies. Research on minority threat has found that this association exists for people who associate Blacks with crime, but this is the first study to examine the tie with Hispanics, who are the largest and fastest-growing minority in the United States. In a 2002 telephone survey representing a national random sample, Welch and her co-authors asked adult residents of the United States about their perceptions of race, ethnicity, crime, and criminal justice policies. Of the nearly 900 people who completed the 15-minute survey, 56% were female, 81% were White, 9% were Black, and 7.5% were Hispanic; their average age was 46. Perceptions of Hispanics as criminals increased support for punitive crime control measures, controlling for various individual and state influences. This relationship applied most to individuals who were less apt to typify criminals as Black, less prejudiced, less fearful of victimization, politically liberal or moderate, not parents, and living in states with relatively fewer Latin American immigrants. Thus, minority threat had more leverage to influence public attitudes when other factors were not as compelling; these attributes may already be so highly associated with a punitive stance toward crime that the capacity for Hispanic stereotypes of criminality to influence support for crime control policies was diminished. In addition, a lack of exposure to and personal interaction with individuals from countries with largely Hispanic populations may preclude an informative or enlightening effect, thus enabling ethnic stereotypes to influence policy preferences. The findings suggest that the rapidly growing U.S. Hispanic population represents a compelling crime threat, at least perceptually, which fosters consistent and strong support for punitive measures to control crime.