Perception of Law Enforcement: How Incidents Like Ferguson Impact Perception of Law Enforcement
Description
Over the past year to eighteen months issues of race and law enforcement have received a lot of media coverage. Incidents like the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore are two examples of incidents that have dominated the news at times. Issues of race and use of forced have been debated a lot since then. How these incidents affect perception of law enforcement and how it affects police officers are several questions that have been raised as well. Using surveys completed by students majoring in Criminal Justice at the University of Dayton, I researched how the shooting in Ferguson affected their view of law enforcement as dangerous and whether or not it affected their decision to pursue a career in this field of work. Questions regarding their personal demographics were asked along with how much news media they watched and from what sources they received media coverage about it.
