Students are required to complete two response papers analyzing academic articles, contributing to 40% of their grade. One featured article discusses the controversial estimates of climate refugees, with projections ranging from 20 million to 200 million by 2050, while questioning the methodology behind these figures. The document emphasizes the connection between climate change, displacement, and the need for urgent action to protect vulnerable communities.

1. Analysis/ Response
paper
Each student will complete TWO response papers. The purpose
of this activity is to ensure that students can read, understand
and analyze an academic paper. Papers are attached below.
You may choose any two of the papers to analyze. Due dates
are listed on the course syllabus and the rubric for the two
papers is on your Moodle site. The response papers will be
weighted at 20 points each, or 40% of the total grade.
PAPER ONE.
How many climate migrants will there be?
By Hannah BarnesBBC News
· 2 September 2013
If politicians are to be believed, migration caused by climate
change will cause the world huge problems. One of the latest to
repeat the warning is UK shadow immigration minister Chris
Bryant, who, like many others before him, said 200 million
people may be forced to flee their country. But how reliable is
this figure?
In
a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research
, Chris Bryant warned that millions of people around the world
could be forced to leave their homes over the next few decades
and move to countries less affected by environmental problems.

2. "If we get climate change wrong there is a very real danger we
shall see levels of mass migration as yet unparalleled," he said.
"The United Nations (UN) estimates that in 2008 20 million
people were displaced by climate change."
In the longer term, he said, "you can imagine that the UN
estimates of 200 million such refugees, more than the total
number of worldwide migrants today, may be about right".
We cannot comment in any way on the accuracy of a figure we
did not produceUN spokesperson
The MP told the BBC it would be inaccurate to say he "warned
that climate change will create 200 million migrants". He added,
however: "It would be accurate to say that I argued that we have
to tackle the push factors that affect migration such as climate
change as otherwise the numbers who are made environmental
refugees may reach the estimate of 200 million."
But how were these estimates calculated, and is the future really
that bleak?
Let's take the 20 million first.
Alex Randall may seem on paper the kind of person who would
agree with figures like this - he works for the Climate Outreach
and Information Network, a charity which aims to raise
awareness of climate refugees and their needs.
In fact he is critical. The 20 million figure, he suggests, is
reached by "adding up all of the people who've been displaced
by any kind of natural disaster and labelling them climate
refugees." And that, in his view, is problematic.

3. More or Less: Behind the stats
Listen to More or Less on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service,
or download the free podcast
Download the More or Less podcast
More stories from More or Less
"It's certainly true that climate change might be making some of
those particular disasters more likely. But it's certainly not the
case that we can attribute all of those individual displacements
to climate change alone," Randall says.
It's also wrong to infer that people affected by a natural disaster
will inevitably migrate, he suggests.
"People tend to move short distances for a short period of time,"
he says. "And then move back."
So, what of the estimate that there could be 200 million climate
refugees by 2050?
This figure has travelled far and wide. It was noted in the
Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
, was mentioned by the
president of the UN General Assembly
in 2008, and has
been cited
by numerous NGOs.
It comes from research papers by Oxford-based scientist Prof
Norman Myers - including
one published in 1995
and
another in 2005

4. .
The disappearing map
Another claim made by Norman Myers, that 50 million people
would become climate refugees by 2010, was shown in 2011 to
have been wrong - leading the UN Environment Programme to
drop a map illustrating the idea from its website.
The caption read: "Fifty million climate refugees by 2010...
There is general agreement about the current global
environmental and development crisis. It is also known that the
consequences of these global changes have the most devastating
impacts on the poorest..."
Initially no explanation was given for the disappearance, just a
bizarre error message: "Dear visitor, it seems like the map you
are navigating by is maybe not fully up-to-date, or that it might
have an error in it, or is it that your GPS is not loaded with the
correct data? We are just taking the scenic route, darling! See
Honey, We're not lost. I know where we are: This way I think...
mmm!"
A UNEP spokesman did eventually tell the BBC that the map
had been removed because it was wrong. The curious can still
download it from
the website of the GRID-Arendal centre
, established by the Norwegian government.
Some academics, however, have doubted Myers' numbers from
the start. Speaking to the BBC in 2011, Stephen Castles from
Oxford University's International Migration Institute, suggested
that Myers' "objective in putting forward these dramatic
projections was to really scare public opinion and politicians
into taking action on climate change".

5. While this was "a very laudable motive", he said, there were
major problems with the method Myers had used to make his
projections.
In the long run I do believe very strongly that it will better for
us to find that we have been roughly right than precisely
wrongNorman Myers
"He simply took a map of the world, worked out what areas
would be inundated if the sea rose, say by 50cm, and then
simply assumed that all the people affected by this sea level rise
would have to migrate - and that a lot of them would migrate to
developed countries. Really there was no basis for it."
One reason why Myers' figures have been so widely repeated
may be that the UN itself has
helped give them credibility
.
But last week the UN told the BBC that it "cannot comment in
any way on the accuracy of a figure we did not produce".
Even the website of the Biodiversity Institute at Oxford
University, at which Norman Myers is listed as an associate
researcher, states that his work on environmental refugees "
is widely viewed as lacking academic credibility
".
But speaking to the BBC in 2011 Norman Myers defended his
methods.
"It's really difficult to say how many there are and where are
they… but in the long run I do believe very strongly that it will
be better for us to find that we have been roughly right than
precisely wrong."

6. Prof Myers also makes clear in his research that not everyone he
classes as an environmental refugee will flee their country -
they could be forced to move somewhere else within the
national boundaries.
He also told the BBC that science was "never ever completely
final - it's always a bit iffy". He added: "I think it would be
much harder to demonstrate that there aren't any of these
environmental refugees than to demonstrate that there are
environmental refugees."
Equally, Stephen Castles did not deny that some people had
been and would in future be forced to move country. In this
category he put the inhabitants of some Pacific islands.
Think Today’s Refugee Crisis is Bad? Climate Change Will
Make it a Lot Worse
Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists
| June 30, 2015 12:58 pm |
Comments
Last year was the
worst year
on record for refugees. The number of people fleeing war and
persecution jumped to nearly 60 million, the highest figure
since the United Nations’ refugee agency began keeping records
50 years ago, and that doesn’t even include people driven from
their homes by poverty, gang violence or natural disasters.
“Climate change is going to compound the cocktail that’s
driving war and displacement.”
Photo credit: Shutterstock
Smugglers are preying on refugees, social services in poor
Middle Eastern and African countries have been stretched to the

7. limit, and Europe and Australia are turning back exiles at their
borders. António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, acknowledged that relief agencies are overwhelmed.
“We don’t have the capacity and we don’t have the resources to
support all the victims of conflict around the world to provide
them with the very minimal level of protection and assistance,”
he
told
reporters at a mid-June press conference.
By all accounts, it’s a mess. But it’s likely only a harbinger of
things to come if industrialized nations don’t dramatically
reduce carbon emissions.
Drought
and desertification already ruin thousands of square miles of
productive land annually in China and a number of African
countries, while
rising sea levels
triggered by warmer global temperatures could eventually force
tens if not hundreds of millions of people from their coastal
homes.
“One of the drivers of displacement and potential conflict over
the next 10 to 20 years will be climate [change]-resource
scarcity,” David Miliband, president of the International Rescue
Committee and a former UK foreign minister,
said
recently. “
Climate change
is going to compound the cocktail that’s driving war and
displacement.”
Global Sea Levels Are Rising Faster
The global average sea level has gone up approximately 8
inches since 1880, but scientists

8. expect
it to rise at a much faster rate over the next century.
Projections of sea level rise by 2100 range from 1 and a half
feet to 6 and a half feet, depending on how quickly land-based
glaciers melt and how quickly industrialized countries rein in
carbon emissions.
Based on that range, a 2011
study
in the British Royal Society’s scientific journal estimated that
72 million to 187 million people would be displaced by 2100 if
no action were taken to upgrade coastal defenses. The study
projects that small islands and coastal communities in Africa
and parts of Asia, which are less likely to have the resources to
install costly barriers, are the places most likely to be
abandoned.
A 2007
study
in
Environment and Urbanization
, meanwhile, used satellite data to identify coastal areas less
than 30 feet above sea level. The study authors then analyzed
census figures from 224 countries. Their finding? Some 634
million people inhabit these low-lying areas. That’s 10 percent
of the world’s population crammed into only 2 percent of the
world’s land mass. Two-thirds of the world’s largest cities—
those with more than 5 million residents—are at least partially
located there.
The study also found the 10 countries with the largest share of
their populations in low-elevation coastal zones are Bangladesh,
China, Egypt, Gambia, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines,
Thailand and the United States. Climate exile is already a
reality in Bangladesh, where millions of people have emigrated
northward to escape chronic flooding in the Bay of Bengal’s

9. low-lying river deltas. Scientists
predict
the country will lose 17 percent of its land to rising sea levels
by 2050, potentially displacing as many as 20 million people.
Climate exile is also front and center for a number of small
island nations, including the Carteret Islands in the South
Pacific and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The Carteret
Islands, a part of Papua New Guinea, began evacuating back in
2009. The Maldives government, meanwhile, is still trying to
find a suitable place to move its 380,000 residents before rising
sea levels overwhelm its 26 atolls.
Flooding Now the Norm on U.S. East and Gulf Coasts
The United States is bound to have its share of refugees, too,
given everybody wants to live near the water. In 2010, more
than 123 million people—39 percent of the U.S. population—
lived in coastal counties,
according to
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And
NOAA expects the U.S. coastal population to jump 8 percent, to
133 million, by 2020.
Sea level rise isn’t uniform along coastlines, and over the last
century or so a number of East Coast locations have experienced
greater than average increases. New York City, for example, has
seen a 17-inch rise since 1856, while the sea level off
Baltimore’s coast has gone up 13 inches since 1902. These
higher levels have led to regular flooding in cities up and down
the coast.
Right now most of that flooding is relatively minor, but
scientists say it is going to get a lot worse. An October 2014
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
report

10. that looked at NOAA tide gauges in 52 municipalities along the
East and Gulf coasts found that most could experience three
times as many high-tide floods annually in the next 15 years and
10 times as many in 30 years. By 2045, many coastal
communities are expected to see a sea level rise of about a foot.
If that happens, a third of the 52 locations in the UCS study—
including Baltimore, Miami and Philadelphia—would begin to
average more than 180 tidal floods a year. Nine cities, including
Annapolis, Atlantic City and Washington, DC, would suffer
more than 240 tidal floods annually, some quite damaging.
Alaskans are already facing a much more dire situation. The
Arctic is warming at a rate of nearly twice the global average,
and over the last 50 years Alaska has warmed 3.4 degrees F,
which has thawed permafrost and triggered shore erosion.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO)
reported
in 2009 that most of the more than 200 native villages in
Alaska had been experiencing flooding and erosion due to
climate change for some time. Government officials have
identified 31 villages that are particularly at risk, and at least
eight of them have elected to relocate or explore relocation
options, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Home to about 350 people, Newtok is furthest along with its
relocation efforts. The village, which sits on the Bering Sea
coast, found a new site roughly 9 miles away and has obtained
some state and federal funds to begin construction there. Even
so, cost is a major sticking point. The GAO estimates the price
tag for moving the village could run as high as $130 million.
How to Best Protect Coastal Communities
Carbon stays in the atmosphere for decades, so even if every
country switched completely to carbon-free energy sources

11. today, sea level rise and tidal flooding would continue to
worsen. We can only hope that the world’s industrialized
nations can reach an agreement on curbing emissions at the
upcoming international climate meeting in Paris. Even if they
do, nations, states and localities will face a formidable task in
protecting their coasts.
A number of U.S. cities and government agencies are taking
steps to safeguard communities. Miami Beach and Tybee Island
off the coast of Georgia, for example, are upgrading their
drainage systems to prevent seawater from backing up and
overflowing streets. Norfolk, Virginia, is turning some of its
coastal parks into wetlands to buffer storms. And the U.S. Naval
Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has installed “door dams” to
shield building entrances from flooding.
UCS’s 2014
report
focused on U.S. coasts, but its recommendations for defending
coastlines can be applied just about anywhere. They include
flood-proofing homes, neighborhoods, and sewer and
stormwater systems; curbing development in areas susceptible
to tidal flooding; and installing sea walls, natural buffers and
other infrastructure. Many of those measures are going to be
very expensive, however, so there’s no way local communities
can go it alone. State, national and even international funding
will have to play a major role.
There has been much hand wringing of late about the plight of
U.S. infrastructure. Years of neglect have resulted in crumbling
roads and bridges, outdated airports, broken water systems, and
accident-prone mass transit. Curiously, the debate over this
long-festering problem does not include the looming threat of
climate change-induced sea level rise. It’s a scenario that is
playing itself out here and around the world, and some say it
will change the face of the planet.

12. “This will be the largest migration in history,”
predicts
Edward Cameron, a former director of the World Resources
Institute’s International Climate Initiative who has advised the
Maldives. “This is not a migration as we’ve known it before.”
With potentially hundreds of millions of climate refugees
seeking safe haven in the decades to come, the time to address
this impending crisis is now.
Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned
Scientists.
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PAPER TWO.
THE NEW YORKER
June 7, 2015
Kalief Browder, 1993–2015
By
Jennifer Gonnerman

13. K CreditPHOTOGRAPH BY ZACH GROSS
Kalief Browder spent three years on Rikers Island without being
convicted of a crime. After he was released, he struggled with
mental health, and he eventually took his own life.
Last fall, I wrote about a young man named
Kalief Browder
, who spent three years on Rikers Island without being
convicted of a crime. He had been arrested in the spring of
2010, at age sixteen, for a robbery he insisted he had not
committed. Then he spent more than one thousand days on
Rikers waiting for a trial that never happened. During that time,
he endured about two years in solitary confinement, where he
attempted to end his life several times. Once, in February, 2012,
he ripped his bedsheet into strips, tied them together to create a
noose, and tried to hang himself from the light fixture in his
cell.
In November of 2013, six months after he left Rikers, Browder
attempted suicide again. This time, he tried to hang himself at
home, from a bannister, and he was taken to the psychiatric
ward at St. Barnabas Hospital, not far from his home, in the
Bronx. When I met him, in the spring of 2014, he appeared to be
more stable.
Then, late last year, about two months after my story about him
appeared, he stopped going to classes at Bronx Community
College. During the week of Christmas, he was confined in the
psych ward at Harlem Hospital. One day after his release, he
was hospitalized again, this time back at St. Barnabas. When I
visited him there on January 9th, he did not seem like himself.
He was gaunt, restless, and deeply paranoid. He had recently
thrown out his brand-new television, he explained, “because it
was watching me.”

14. After two weeks at St. Barnabas, Browder was released and sent
back home. The next day, his lawyer, Paul V. Prestia, got a call
from an official at Bronx Community College. An anonymous
donor (who had likely read the
New Yorker
story) had offered to pay his tuition for the semester. This
happy news prompted Browder to reenroll. For the next few
months he seemed to thrive. He rode his bicycle back and forth
to school every day, he no longer got panic attacks sitting in a
classroom, and he earned better grades than he had the prior
semester.
Ever since I’d met him, Browder had been telling me stories
about having been abused by officers and inmates on Rikers.
The stories were disturbing, but I did not fully appreciate what
he had experienced until this past April when
I obtained surveillance footage
of an officer assaulting him and of a large group of inmates
pummeling and kicking him. I sat next to Kalief while he
watched these videos for the first time. Afterward, we discussed
whether they should be published on
The New Yorker
’
s
Web site. I told him that it was his decision. He said to put
them online.
He was driven by the same motive that led him to talk to me for
the first time, a year earlier. He wanted the public to know what
he had gone through, so that nobody else would have to endure
the same ordeals. His willingness to tell his story publicly—and
his ability to recount it with great insight—ultimately helped
persuade
Mayor Bill de Blasio to try to reform
the city’s court system and end the sort of excessive delays that
kept him in jail for so long.

15. Browder’s story also caught the attention of Rand Paul, who
began talking about him on the campaign trail. Jay Z met with
Browder after watching the videos. Rosie O’Donnell invited
him on “The View” last year and recently had him over for
dinner. Browder could be a very private person, and he told
almost nobody about meeting O’Donnell or Jay Z. However, in
a picture taken of him with Jay Z
,
who draped an arm around his shoulders, Browder looked
euphoric.
Last Monday, Prestia, who had filed a lawsuit on Browder’s
behalf against the city, noticed that Browder had put up a
couple of odd posts on Facebook. When Prestia sent him a text
message, asking what was going on, Browder insisted he was
O.K. “Are you sure everything is cool?” Prestia wrote. Browder
replied: “Yea I’m alright thanks man.” The two spoke on
Wednesday, and Browder did seem fine. On Saturday afternoon,
Prestia got a call from Browder’s mother: he had committed
suicide.
That night, Prestia and I visited the family’s home in the Bronx.
Fifteen relatives—aunts, uncles, cousins—sat crammed together
in the front room with his parents and siblings. The mood was
alternately depressed, angry, and confused. Two empty bottles
of Browder’s antipsychotic drug sat on a table. Was it possible
that taking the drug had caused him to commit suicide? Or
could he have stopped taking it and become suicidal as a result?
His relatives recounted stories he’d told them about being
starved and beaten by guards on Rikers. They spoke about his
paranoia, about how he often suspected that the cops or some
other authority figures were after him. His mother explained
that the night before he told her, “Ma, I can’t take it anymore.”

16. “Kalief, you’ve got a lot of people in your corner,” she told
him.
One cousin recalled that when Browder first got home from jail,
he would walk to G.E.D. prep class every day, almost an hour
each way. Another cousin remembered seeing him seated by the
kitchen each morning with his schoolwork spread out before
him.
His parents showed me his bedroom on the second floor. Next to
his bed was his MacBook Air. (Rosie O’Donnell had given it to
him.) A bicycle stood by the closet. There were two holes near
the door, which he had made with his fist some months earlier.
Mustard-yellow sheets covered his bed. And, to the side of the
room, atop a jumble of clothes, there were two mustard-yellow
strips that he had evidently torn from his bedsheets.
As his father explained, he’d apparently decided that these torn
strips of sheet were not strong enough. That afternoon, at about
12:15 P.M., he went into another bedroom, pulled out the air
conditioner, and pushed himself out through the hole in the
wall, feet first, with a cord wrapped around his neck
*
. His mother was the only other person home at the time. After
she heard a loud thumping noise, she went upstairs to
investigate, but couldn’t figure out what had happened. It
wasn’t until she went outside to the backyard and looked up that
she realized that her youngest child had hanged himself.
That evening, in a room packed with family members, Prestia
said, “This case is bigger than Michael Brown!” In that case, in
which a police officer shot Brown, an unarmed teen-ager, in
Ferguson, Missouri, Prestia recalled that there were conflicting
stories about what happened. And the incident took, he said,
“one minute in time.” In the case of Kalief Browder, he said,
“When you go over the three years that he spent [in jail] and all

17. the horrific details he endured, it’s unbelievable that this could
happen to a teen-ager in New York City. He didn’t get tortured
in some prison camp in another country. It was right here!”
*
Browder’s mother later explained that the cord was
made from his bedsheets
PAPER THREE.
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street
New Haven, CT 06515
Phone: (203) 392-SCSU
RAPE CULTURE, VICTIM BLAMING, AND THE FACTS
WHAT IS RAPE CULTURE?
Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and
in which sexual violence is normalized and excused in the
media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through
the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of
women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence,
thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and
safety.
EXAMPLES OF RAPE CULTURE
· Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”)
· Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”)

18. · Sexually explicit jokes
· Tolerance of sexual harassment
· Inflating false rape report statistics
· Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state,
motives, and history
· Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television
· Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive
· Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually
passive
· Pressure on men to “score”
· Pressure on women to not appear “cold”
· Assuming only promiscuous women get raped
· Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak”
men get raped
· Refusing to take rape accusations seriously
· Teaching women to avoid getting raped
VICTIM BLAMING
One reason people blame a victim is to distance themselves
from an unpleasant occurrence and thereby confirm their own
invulnerability to the risk. By labeling or accusing the victim,
others can see the victim as different from themselves. People

19. reassure themselves by thinking, "Because I am not like her,
because I do not do that, this would never happen to me." We
need to help people understand that this is not a helpful
reaction.
Why Is It Dangerous?
Victim-blaming attitudes marginalize the victim/survivor and
make it harder to come forward and report the abuse. If the
survivor knows that you or society blames her for the abuse,
s/he will not feel safe or comfortable coming forward and
talking to you.
Victim-blaming attitudes also reinforce what the abuser has
been saying all along; that it is the victim’s fault this is
happening. It is NOT the victim’s fault or responsibility to fix
the situation; it is the abuser’s choice. By engaging in victim-
blaming attitudes, society allows the abuser to perpetrate
relationship abuse or sexual assault while avoiding
accountability for his/her actions.
What Does Victim-Blaming Look Like?
Example of Victim-Blaming Attitude:
“She must have provoked him into being abusive. They both
need to change.”
Reality:
This statement assumes that the victim is equally to blame for
the abuse, when in reality, abuse is a conscious choice made by
the abuser. Abusers have a choice in how they react to their
partner’s actions. Options besides abuse include: walking away,
talking in the moment, respectfully explaining why an action is
frustrating, breaking up, etc. Additionally, abuse is not about
individual actions that incite the abuser to hurt his partner, but
rather about the abuser’s feelings of entitlement to do whatever

20. he wants to his partner.
When friends and family remain neutral about the abuse and say
that both people need to change, they are colluding with and
supporting the abusive partner and making it less likely that the
survivor will seek support.
HOW CAN MEN AND WOMEN COMBAT RAPE CULTURE
AND VICTIM BLAMING?
· Avoid using language that objectifies or degrades women
· Speak out if you hear someone else making an offensive
joke or trivializing rape
· If a friend says they have been raped, take your friend
seriously and be supportive
· Think critically about the media’s messages about women,
men, relationships, and violence
· Be respectful of others’ physical space even in casual
situations
· Let survivors know that it is not their fault
· Hold abusers accountable for their actions: do not let them
make excuses like blaming the victim, alcohol, or drugs for
their behavior
· Always communicate with sexual partners and do not
assume consent
· Define your own manhood or womanhood. Do not let
stereotypes shape your actions.

21. · Be an Active Bystander!
Adapted from Marshall University and Center for Relationship
Abuse Awareness
DATING AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FACTS
FACT: Regardless of their actions, no one deserves to be
physically, verbally or sexually abused. In fact, putting the
blame for the violence on the victim is a way to manipulate the
victim and other people. Batterers will tell the victim, "You
made me mad," or, "You made me jealous," or will try to shift
the burden by saying, "Everyone acts like that." Most victims
try to placate and please their abusive partners in order to de-
escalate the violence. The batterer chooses to abuse, and bears
full responsibility for the violence.
FACT: Many victims love their partners despite the abuse,
blame themselves, or feel as if they have no support system or
resources outside of the relationship and so they feel as if they
can’t leave. Furthermore, the period immediately after leaving
an abusive relationship is extremely dangerous.
FACT: Jealousy and possessiveness are signs that the person
sees you as a possession. They are one of the most common
early warning sign of abuse
FACT: Abuse can come in many forms, such as sexual,
physical, verbal, and emotional. When a person in a relationship
repeatedly scares, hurts, or puts down the other person, it is
abuse. Harassment, intimidation, forced or coerced isolation
from friends and family and having an independent social life,
humiliation, threats of harm to you or your family or pets,
threats of suicide if you leave, violating your privacy, limiting
your independence and personal choices are all examples of
abuse.

22. FACT: While the majority of victims of domestic violence are
women, men may also be victims of relationship violence. Men
face many of the same barriers as women that prevent them
from reporting abuse, but also face a different kind of stigma
since many do not believe that men can be victims of
dating/domestic violence.
FACT: The majority of men and young men in our community
are not violent. The use of violence is a choice. Men who use
violence in their relationships choose where and when they are
violent. The large majority of offenders who assault their
partners control their violence with others, such as friends or
work colleagues, where there is no perceived right to dominate
and control.
Stating that 'All men are violent' places the blame for the
violence elsewhere and prevents the perpetrator from being
responsible for his violence. The majority of men and women
want and can be allies to help in the fight against this kind of
violence.
FACT: As many as one-third of all high school and college-age
young people experience violence in an intimate or dating
relationship. Physical abuse is as common among high school
and college-age couples as married couples.
SEXUAL ASSAULT FACTS
FACT: Men, women and children of all ages, races, religions,
and economic classes can be and have been victims of sexual
assault. Sexual assault occurs in rural areas, small towns and
larger cities. It is estimated that one in three girls and one six
boys will be sexually assaulted by the age of eighteen.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a rape or
attempted rape occurs every 5 minutes in the United States.

23. FACT: Sexual assault is NEVER the victim’s fault. Sexual
assault is a violent attack on an individual, not a spontaneous
crime of sexual passion. For a victim, it is a humiliating and
degrading act. No one “asks” for or deserves this type of attack.
FACT: Most sexual assaults are committed by someone the
victim knows. Studies show that approximately 80%-90% of
women reporting sexual assaults knew their assailant.
FACT: A sexual assault can happen anywhere and at any time.
The majority of assaults occur in places ordinarily thought to be
safe, such as homes, cars and offices.
FACT: Reported sexual assaults are true, with very few
exceptions. According to CONNSACS, only 2% of reported
rapes are false. This is the same rate of false reporting as other
major crime reports.
FACT: Men can be, and are, sexually assaulted. Current
statistics indicate that one in six men are sexually assaulted in
their lifetime. Sexual assault of men is thought to be greatly
under-reported.
FACT: Almost all sexual assaults occur between members of the
same race. Interracial rape is not common, but it does occur.
FACT: Sexual assault is motivated by hostility, power and
control. Sexual assaults are not motivated by sexual desire.
Unlike animals, humans are capable of controlling how they
choose to act on or express sexual urges.
FACT: Sexual offenders come from all educational,
occupational, racial and cultural backgrounds. They are
“ordinary” and “normal” individuals who sexually assault

24. victims to assert power and control over them and inflict
violence, humiliation and degradation.
FACT: Anytime someone is forced to have sex against their
will, they have been sexually assaulted, regardless of whether or
not they fought back or said "no". There are many reasons why
a victim might not physically fight their attacker including
shock, fear, threats or the size and strength of the attacker.
FACT: Survivors exhibit a spectrum of emotional responses to
assault: calm, hysteria, laughter, anger, apathy, shock. Each
survivor copes with the trauma of the assault in a different way.
Adapted from Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services
(CONNSACS)
Southern Connecticut State University
PAPER FOUR. This is a lengthy paper and, should you decide
to analyze it, I recommend the following. Identify five main
points and introduce your sociological knowledge in discussing
each of the points – you can employ culture, the sociological
perspective, social control and deviance, stratification, any of
the ideas we discuss in this class. The paper will count as the
two required response papers or 40% of your grade.
PEW RESEARCH CENTER
JANUARY 11, 2017
Behind the Badge
Amid protests and calls for reform, how police view their jobs,
key issues and recent fatal encounters between blacks and
police

25. BY
RICH MORIN
,
KIM PARKER
,
RENEE STEPLER
AND
ANDREW MERCER
(Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Police work has always been hard. Today police say it is even
harder. In a new Pew Research Center national survey
conducted by the National Police Research Platform, majorities
of police officers say that recent high-profile fatal encounters
between black citizens and police officers have made their jobs
riskier, aggravated tensions between police and blacks, and left
many officers reluctant to fully carry out some of their duties.
The wide-ranging survey, one of the largest ever conducted with
a nationally representative sample of police, draws on the
attitudes and experiences of nearly 8,000 policemen and women
from departments with at least 100 officers.
1
It comes at a crisis point in America’s relationship with the
men and women who enforce its laws, precipitated by a series of
deaths of black Americans during encounters with the police
that have energized a vigorous national debate over police
conduct and methods.
Within America’s police and sheriff’s departments, the survey
finds that the ramifications of these deadly encounters have
been less visible than the public protests, but no less profound.
Three-quarters say the incidents have increased tensions
between police and blacks in their communities. About as many
(72%) say officers in their department are now less willing to

26. stop and question suspicious persons. Overall, more than eight-
in-ten (86%) say police work is harder today as a result of these
high-profile incidents.
At the same time that black Americans are dying in encounters
with police, the
number of fatal attacks
on officers has grown in recent years. About nine-in-ten
officers (93%) say their colleagues worry more about their
personal safety – a level of concern recorded even before a total
of eight officers died in separate ambush-style attacks in Dallas
and Baton Rouge last July.
The survey also finds that officers remain deeply skeptical of
the protests that have followed deadly encounters between
police and black citizens. Two-thirds of officers (68%) say the
demonstrations are motivated to a great extent by anti-police
bias; only 10% in a separate question say protesters are
similarly motivated by a genuine desire to hold police
accountable for their actions. Some two-thirds characterize the
fatal encounters that prompted the demonstrations as isolated
incidents and not signs of broader problems between police and
the black community – a view that stands in sharp contrast with
the assessment of the general public. In a separate Pew
Research Center survey of U.S. adults, 60% say these incidents
are symptoms of a deeper problem.
A look inside the nation’s police departments reveals that most
officers are satisfied with their department as a place to work
and remain strongly committed to making their agency
successful. Still, about half (53%) question whether their
department’s disciplinary procedures are fair, and seven-in-ten
(72%) say that poorly performing officers are not held
accountable.
Conflicting experiences and emotions mark police culture

27. Other survey findings underscore the duality of police work and
the emotional toll that police work can take on officers. About
eight-in-ten (79%) say they have been thanked by someone for
their service in the month prior to the survey while on duty. But
also during that time two-thirds say they have been verbally
abused by a member of their community, and a third have
fought or physically struggled with a suspect. A majority of
officers (58%) say their work nearly always or often makes
them feel proud. But nearly the same share (51%) say the job
often frustrates them. More than half (56%) say their job has
made them more callous.
Most police officers feel respected by the public and, in turn,
believe officers have little reason to distrust most people.
Rather than viewing the neighborhoods where they work as
hostile territory, seven-in-ten officers say that some or most of
the residents of the areas they patrol share their values. At the
same time, a narrow majority of officers (56%) believe an
aggressive rather than courteous approach is more effective in
certain neighborhoods, and 44% agree that some people can
only be brought to reason the hard, physical way.
Long-standing tensions between police and blacks underlie
many of the survey results. While substantial majorities of
officers say police have a good relationship with whites,
Hispanics and Asians in their communities, 56% say the same
about police relations with blacks. This perception varies
dramatically by the race or ethnicity of the officer. Six-in-ten
white and Hispanic officers characterize police relations with
blacks as excellent or good, a view shared by only 32% of their
black colleagues.
The racial divide looms equally large on other survey questions,
particularly those that touch on race. When considered together,
the frequency and sheer size of the differences between the

28. views of black and white officers mark one of the singular
findings of this survey. For example, only about a quarter of all
white officers (27%) but seven-in-ten of their black colleagues
(69%) say the protests that followed fatal encounters between
police and black citizens have been motivated at least to some
extent by a genuine desire to hold police accountable.
And when the topic turns more broadly to the state of race
relations, virtually all white officers (92%) but only 29% of
their black colleagues say that the country has made the changes
needed to assure equal rights for blacks. Not only do the views
of white officers differ from those of their black colleagues, but
they stand far apart from those of whites overall: 57% of all
white adults say no more changes are needed, as measured in
the Center’s survey of the general public.
Public, police differ on some key issues
Further differences in attitudes and perceptions emerge when
the views of officers are compared with those of the public on
other questions. While two-thirds of all police officers say the
deaths of blacks at the hands of police are isolated incidents,
only about four-in-ten members of the public (39%) share this
view while the majority (60%) believes these encounters point
to a broader problem between police and blacks.
And while a majority of Americans (64%) favor a ban on
assault-style weapons, a similar share of police officers (67%)
say they would oppose such a ban.
On other issues the public and police broadly agree. Majorities
of both groups favor the use of body cameras by officers to
record interactions with citizens (66% of officers and 93% of
the public). And about two-thirds of police (68%) and a larger
share of the public (84%) believe the country’s marijuana laws
should be relaxed, and a larger share of the public than the

29. police support legalizing marijuana for both private and medical
use (49% vs. 32%).
These findings come from two separate Pew Research Center
surveys. The main survey is an online poll of a nationally
representative sample of 7,917 officers working in 54 police
and sheriff’s departments with 100 or more sworn officers.
(Some 63% of all sworn officers work in departments of this
size.) The National Police Research Platform, headquartered at
the University of Illinois at Chicago during the study period,
conducted this survey of police for the Pew Research Center
May 19-Aug. 14, 2016, using its panel of police agencies. The
NPRP panel is described in more detail in the
methodology
.
The views of the public included in this report drew from a Pew
Research Center American Trends Panel survey of 4,538 U.S.
adults conducted online and by mail Aug. 16-Sept. 12, 2016.
That survey included many of the same questions asked on the
police survey, allowing direct comparisons to be made between
the views of officers and the public.
Contrasting experiences, conflicting emotions
The survey provides a unique window into how police officers
see their role in the community, how they assess the dangers of
the job and what they encounter on a day-to-day basis. It also
gives a glimpse into the psychology of policing and the way in
which officers approach the moral and ethical challenges of the
job.
Police have a nuanced view of their role – they don’t see
themselves as just protectors or as enforcers. A majority (62%)
say they fill both of these roles equally. They also experience a
range of emotions on the job – often conflicting ones. A

30. majority of officers (58%) say their work nearly always or often
makes them feel proud. Almost as many (51%) say they nearly
always or often feel frustrated by the job.
Officers are somewhat less likely to say they feel fulfilled by
their job (42% say nearly always or often). Relatively few
officers (22%) say their job often makes them feel angry, but a
significant share (49%) say it sometimes makes them feel this
way. Officers who say their job often makes them feel angry
seem to be less connected to the citizens they serve. Fully 45%
say very few or none of the people in the neighborhoods they
serve share their values. Only 20% of officers who say they
hardly ever or never feel angry say the same.
White officers are significantly more likely than black officers
to associate negative emotions with their job. For example, 54%
of white officers say they nearly always or often feel frustrated
by their work, while roughly four-in-ten (41%) black officers
say the same. Hispanic officers fall in the middle on this
measure.
2
Officers worry about their safety and think the public doesn’t
understand the risks they face
Fatal encounters between blacks and police have dominated the
headlines in recent years. But the story took on another twist
with the ambush-style attack that killed five police officers last
summer in Dallas. Because these attacks occurred while the
survey was in the field, it was possible to see if safety concerns
of officers were affected by the incidents by comparing views
before and after the assault.
Overall, the vast majority of officers say they have serious
concerns about their physical safety at least sometimes when
they are on the job. Some 42% say they nearly always or often

31. have serious concerns about their safety, and another 42% say
they sometimes have these concerns. The share of police saying
they often or always have serious concerns about their own
safety remained fairly consistent in interviews conducted pre-
Dallas to post-Dallas.
3
While physical confrontations are not a day-to-day occurrence
for most police officers, they are not altogether infrequent. A
third of all officers say that in the past month, they have
physically struggled or fought with a suspect who was resisting
arrest. Male officers are more likely than their female
counterparts to report having had this type of encounter in the
past month – 35% of men vs. 22% of women. And white officers
(36%) are more likely than black officers (20%) to say they
have struggled or fought with a suspect in the past month.
Among Hispanic officers, 33% say they had an encounter like
this.
Although police officers clearly recognize the dangers inherent
in their job, most believe the public doesn’t understand the risks
and challenges they face. Only 14% say the public understands
these risks very or somewhat well, while 86% say the public
doesn’t understand them too well or at all.
4
For their part, the large majority of American adults (83%) say
they do understand the risks law enforcement officers face.
Police interactions with the public can range from casual
encounters to moments of high stress. And the reactions police
report getting from community members reflect the diverse
nature of those contacts. Large majorities of officers across
most major demographic groups report that they have been
thanked for their service, but there are significant differences
across key demographic groups when it comes to verbal abuse.
Men are more likely than women to say they have been verbally

32. abused by a community member in the past month. White and
Hispanic officers are more likely than black officers to have had
this experience. And a much higher share of younger officers
(ages 18 to 44) report being verbally abused – 75%, compared
with 58% of their older counterparts.
The situations police face on the job can often present moral
dilemmas. When asked how they would advise a fellow officer
in an instance where doing what is morally the right thing
would require breaking a department rule, a majority of police
(57%) say they would advise their colleague to do the morally
right thing. Four-in-ten say they would advise the colleague to
follow the department rule. There’s a significant racial divide
on this question: 63% of white officers say they would advise
doing the morally right thing, even if it meant breaking a
department rule; only 43% of black officers say they would give
the same advice.
Size and demographic composition of America’s police
departments
Police are highly committed to their work but say more officers
are needed
A look inside the nation’s police departments reveals a great
deal about how officers view their jobs, their leadership and
their resources. For the most part police officers give their
workplace a positive rating and are committed to their agency’s
success. A solid majority of officers are either very satisfied
(16%) or satisfied (58%) with their agency as a place to work.
And an overwhelming share of officers (96%) agree that they
are strongly committed to making their agency successful.
Still, police do not offer universal praise of their departmental
leadership. Only three-in-ten say they are extremely (7%) or
very (23%) supportive of the direction that top management is

33. taking their organization. About half are moderately (28%) or
slightly (19%) supportive and 15% are not supportive at all.
And police express serious concerns about resource limitations.
At the most basic level, most police (86%) say their department
does not have enough officers to adequately police the
community. Police who work in larger agencies (with 1,000
officers of more) are more likely than those working in smaller
agencies to say that there is a shortage of officers in their
department (95% vs. 79%).
Police give their departments relatively positive, though not
exemplary, ratings for training and equipping officers to do
their jobs. Roughly four-in-ten officers (39%) say their
department has done very well in terms of training them
adequately for their job, and a similar share (37%) give their
department high marks for clearly communicating the
responsibilities of the job. About three-in-ten officers (31%)
say their department has done very well when it comes to
equipping them to perform their job. On each of these
dimensions, about four-in-ten officers say their department has
done somewhat well, while about one-in-five rate their
department’s performance as not too well or not at all well in
these areas.
Again there are gaps by department size, with smaller
departments (1,000 officers or fewer) giving their leadership
significantly higher ratings when it comes to training and
equipping them, as well as communicating job expectations.
Most officers say their use-of-force guidelines are appropriate
and helpful
As many departments grapple with use-of-force policies and
training, most officers say their own agency’s guidelines strike
the right balance. About one-in-four (26%) say the rules

34. governing use of force in their department are too restrictive,
while 73% say they are about right (1% say the guidelines are
not restrictive enough).
Roughly a third (34%) of officers say their department’s
guidelines are very useful when police are confronted with
actual situations where force may be necessary. An additional
51% say the guidelines are somewhat useful. Some 14% say
they are not too useful or not at all useful. And when the
department guidelines are not being followed, police
overwhelmingly say fellow officers need to step up. Fully 84%
say officers should be required to intervene when they believe
another officer is about to use unnecessary force; just 15% say
they should not be required to intervene.
In terms of striking the right balance between acting decisively
versus taking time to assess a situation, police tend to be more
concerned that officers in their department will spend
too much time
diagnosing a situation before acting (56% worry more about
this) than they are about officers
not spending enough time
before acting decisively (41%).
Black officers are much more likely than white or Hispanic
officers to say they worry more that officers will not spend
enough time diagnosing a situation before acting (61% for
blacks vs. 37% for whites and 44% of Hispanics). Overall,
blacks and department administrators (59%) are the only two
major groups in which a majority is more concerned that
officers will act too quickly than worry that they will wait too
long before responding to a situation.
Officers give their departments mixed ratings for their
disciplinary processes. About half (45%) agree that the
disciplinary process in their agency is fair, while 53% disagree

35. (including one-in-five who strongly disagree). When they are
asked more specifically about the extent to which
underperforming officers are held accountable, police give more
negative assessments of their departments. Only 27% agree that
officers who consistently do a poor job are held accountable,
while 72% disagree with this.
Most officers have had at least some training in key areas of
reform
Reforming law enforcement tactics and procedures –
particularly as they relate to the use of force – has become an
important focus both inside and outside the police department.
In the wake of recent fatalities of blacks during encounters with
police,
recommendations
have been made to prevent these types of situations from
occurring.
The survey finds broad support among police, especially
administrators, for the use of body cameras. Even so, officers
are somewhat skeptical that their use would change police
behavior. Half of all officers say body cameras would make
police more likely to act appropriately, while 44% say this
wouldn’t make any difference.
Despite the national attention given to training and reforms
aimed at preventing the use of unnecessary force, relatively few
(half or fewer rank-and-file officers) report having had at least
four hours of training in some specific areas over the preceding
12 months.
About half of rank-and-file officers say they have had at least
four hours of firearms training in the last 12 months involving
shoot-don’t shoot scenarios (53%) and nonlethal methods to
control a combative or threatening individual (50%). Some 46%

36. of officers have had at least four hours of training in how to
deal with individuals who are having a mental health crisis, and
44% say they have had at least four hours of training in how to
de-escalate a situation so it is not necessary to use force.
About four-in-ten officers say they have received at least four
hours of training in bias and fairness (39%) and how to deal
with people so they feel they’ve been treated fairly and
respectfully (37%).
Most officers say high-profile incidents have made policing
harder
Whether an officer works in a department that employs
hundreds or thousands of sworn officers or is located in a quiet
suburb or bustling metropolis, police say their jobs are harder
now as a consequence of recent high-profile fatal incidents
involving blacks and police.
Overall, fully 86% of officers say their jobs are harder,
including substantial majorities of officers in police
departments with fewer than 300 officers as well as those
working in “mega departments” with 2,600 officers or more
(84% and 89%, respectively). In fact, across every major
demographic group analyzed for this survey, about eight-in-ten
officers or more say these high-profile incidents have made
policing more challenging and more dangerous.
While the impact of these incidents is broadly felt, officers in
larger departments are far more likely than those in small
agencies to say these incidents have had an impact. For
example, roughly half of officers (54%) in departments with
fewer than 300 officers say their peers have become less willing
to stop and question people who seem suspicious. By contrast,
fully 86% of police in departments with 2,600 officers or more
say fellow officers are now more hesitant to question people

37. who look or act suspicious. Similarly, roughly nine-in-ten
officers (87%) in the largest departments say that police
interactions with blacks have become more tense; 61% of
officers in small departments agree.
Police in larger departments also are more likely than those in
small agencies to say officers in their department are more
reluctant to use force to control a suspect even when it is
appropriate, a move that police critics may view as a positive
sign but others may see as putting officers at increased risk.
The survey also found that roughly half (46%) of officers say
fatal encounters between blacks and police in recent years have
prompted their department to modify their use-of-force policies.
Officers in large departments are more than three times as likely
to report that their departments have made this change as small
agencies (68% vs. 19%). About two-thirds of police in larger
departments (66%) say their departments have taken steps to
improve relations with black residents. By contrast, about a
third of officers in small departments (35%) have made similar
outreach efforts.
How officers view police relations with whites and minorities
Large majorities of white, black and Hispanic officers agree
that police and whites in their communities get along.
5
But striking differences emerge when the focus shifts to police
relations with racial and ethnic minorities. A consistently
smaller share of black officers than their white or Hispanic
colleagues say the police have a positive relationship with
minorities in the community they serve. Roughly a third of all
black officers (32%) characterize relations with blacks in their
community as either excellent or good, while majorities of
white and Hispanic officers (60% for both) offer a positive
assessment.

38. At the same time, only about half of all black officers (46%) but
large majorities of Hispanic (71%) and white (76%) officers say
relations between police and Hispanics are excellent or good.
Similarly, three-quarters of all black officers but 91% of white
officers and 88% of Hispanic officers rate relations with Asians
in their communities positively.
Majority of police view fatal encounters as isolated incidents
Two-thirds of police officers (67%) say the highly publicized
fatal encounters between police and blacks are isolated
incidents, while 31% describe them as signs of a broader
problem. Yet underlying this result are striking differences
between the views of black and white officers – differences that
mirror the broader fault lines in society at large on racial issues.
A majority of black officers (57%) say these encounters are
evidence of a broader problem between police and blacks, a
view held by only about a quarter of all white (27%) and
Hispanic (26%) officers.
Black female officers in particular are more likely to say these
incidents signal a more far-reaching concern. Among all sworn
officers, 63% of black women say this, compared with 54% of
black men.
Widespread doubts about protesters’ motives
Most police officers are deeply skeptical of the motives of the
demonstrators who protested after many of the deadly
encounters between police and blacks. Fully nine-in-ten (92%)
believe that long-standing bias against the police is a great deal
(68%) or some (24%) of the motivation behind these
demonstrations. In sharp contrast, only about a third (35%) of
officers say in a separate question that a genuine desire to hold

39. officers accountable for their actions is at least some of the
motivation for the protests.
Once again, race pushes police in opposite directions. Among
black officers, 69% say the protests were sincere efforts to force
police accountability – more than double the proportion of
whites (27%) who share this view. Female officers, older police
and department administrators also are more likely than male
officers, younger police and rank-and-file officers to believe
protesters genuinely seek police accountability.
Support for aggressive, physical tactics
The law gives police great discretion in how they interact with
citizens. Depending on the situation, these techniques can range
from polite persuasion to the use of forceful and more pointed
verbal commands to the extreme physical measures that officers
sometimes use, often as a last resort, to control threatening or
combative individuals. The use of these more severe techniques
has been a main focus of the national debate over police
methods.
To measure their attitudes toward more aggressive tactics,
officers were asked how much they agreed or disagreed with
two statements. The first statement read, “In certain areas of the
city it is more useful for an officer to be aggressive than to be
courteous.” The second measured support for the assertion that
“some people can only be brought to reason the hard, physical
way.”
A narrow majority of officers (56%) feel that in some
neighborhoods being aggressive is more effective than being
courteous, while 44% agree or strongly agree that hard, physical
tactics are necessary to deal with some people.
On both measures, a larger share of younger, less senior officers

40. and those with less than five years of experience favor these
techniques, while proportionally fewer older, more experienced
officers or department administrators endorse them.
A majority of officers say they have become more callous
There’s a saying in police work that officers see things the
public doesn’t see – and also things the public
shouldn’t
see. Exposure to the dark side of life, coupled with the stress
that officers encounter working in high-pressure situations or
with hostile individuals, means that many officers may pay an
emotional price for their service.
For example, a 56% majority of officers say they have become
more callous toward people since taking their job. Younger
officers and white officers are more likely than older or black
officers to say they have become more callous.
Officers who report they have grown more callous are also more
likely than their colleagues to endorse aggressive or physically
harsh tactics with some people or in some parts of the
community. They also are more likely than other officers to say
they are frequently angered or frustrated by their jobs or to have
been involved in a physical or verbal confrontation with a
citizen in the past month or to have fired their service weapon
while on duty at some point in their careers.
It is difficult to discern with these data whether increased
callousness is a primary cause or a consequence of feelings of
anger or frustration, or attitudes toward aggressive tactics.
However, the data suggest that these feelings and behaviors are
related. For example, officers who sense they have become
more callous on the job are about twice as likely as those who
say they have not to say their job nearly always or often makes
them feel angry (30% vs. 12%). They also are more likely to

41. feel frustrated by their job (63% vs. 37%).
Among those officers who say they have become more callous,
about four-in-ten (38%) physically struggled or fought with a
suspect in the previous month compared with 26% of those who
say they have not become more insensitive.
Similarities and differences between police and public views
On a range of issues and attitudes, police and the public often
see the world in very different ways. For example, when both
groups are asked whether the public understands the risks and
rewards of police work, fully eight-in-ten (83%) of the public
say they do, while 86% of police say they don’t – the single
largest disparity measured in these surveys.
And while the country is divided virtually down the middle over
the need to continue making changes to obtain equal rights for
blacks, the overwhelming majority of police (80%) say no
further changes are necessary. The public also is twice as likely
as police to favor a ban on assault-style weapons (64% vs.
32%).
Yet these differences in views are matched by equally
significant areas of broad agreement. Large majorities of
officers (92%) and the public (79%) say anti-police bias is at
least somewhat of a motivation for those protesting the deaths
of blacks at the hands of police. Majorities of police and the
public favor the use of body cameras by officers, though a
significantly larger share of the public supports their use (93%
vs. 66%) and sees more benefits from body cams than the police
do.
While they disagree about an assault weapons ban, large
majorities of the police (88%) and the public (86%) favor
making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to

42. background checks. Majorities also favor creating a federal
database to track all gun sales (61% for police and 71% of the
public).
The remainder of this report explores in greater detail the
working lives, experiences and attitudes of America’s police
officers. Chapter 1 examines police culture, how officers view
their job as well as the risks and rewards of police work.
Chapter 2 reports how officers view their departments and their
superiors as well as officers’ attitudes toward the internal rules
and policies that govern how they do their job, including the use
of force. Chapter 3 looks at how officers view the citizens they
serve and how they think the citizens view them, including
officers’ perceptions of the relations between police and whites,
blacks and other minority groups in their communities. Chapter
4 explores police reaction to recent fatal encounters between
blacks and police, the protests that followed many of these
incidents and the impact those events have had on how officers
do their job. Chapter 5 looks at how officers view various
police reforms, including the use of body cameras, and reports
on the kinds of police training officers receive to help reduce
bias, de-escalate threatening situations as well as how to know
when – and when not to – use their service weapons or use
deadly force. The final chapter compares and contrasts the
views of police with those of the public on a wide range of
issues relevant to police work, including attitudes toward gun
law reforms and changes to the country’s marijuana laws. It also
explores how each group views recent fatal encounters between
blacks and police as well as the protests that have frequently
followed those incidents.
Other key findings:
§ About half of black officers (53%) say that whites are treated
better than minorities in their department or agency when it
comes to assignments and promotions. Few Hispanic (19%) or

43. white officers (1%) agree. About six-in-ten white and Hispanic
officers say minorities and whites are treated the same
(compared with 39% of black officers).
§ Most officers say that outside of required training, they have
not discharged their service firearm while on duty; 27% say
they have done this. Male officers are about three times as
likely as female officers to say they have fired their weapon
while on duty – 30% of men vs. 11% of women.
§ Roughly three-in-ten officers (31%) say they have patrolled
on foot continuously for 30 minutes or more in the past month;
68% say they have not done this.
§ Officers are divided over whether local police should take an
active role (52%) in identifying undocumented immigrants
rather than leaving this task mainly to federal authorities (46%).
§ The share of sworn officers who are women or minorities has
increased slowly in recent decades. Since 1987 the share of
female officers has grown from 8% to 12% in 2013, the last
year the federal Department of Justice measured the
demographic characteristics of police agencies. During that
time, the share of black officers increased from 9% to 12%
while the Hispanic share more than doubled, from 5% to 12%.
§ About seven-in-ten officers say some or most of the people in
the neighborhoods where they routinely work share their values
and beliefs. Officers in larger departments are less likely than
those in smaller departments to say they share values with the
people in the areas where they patrol.
§ About half (51%) of police officers compared with 29% of all
employed adults say their job nearly always or often frustrates
them, while about four-in-ten officers (42%) and half of
employed adults (52%) say their work frequently makes them

44. feel fulfilled.
§ A large majority of all officers (76%) say that responding
effectively to people who are having a mental health crisis is an
important role for police. An additional 12% say this is a role
for them, though not an important one and 11% say this is not a
role for police.
Terminology
1. See the
methodology
appendix for a more detailed description of the criteria used to
select the agencies in the sample.
↩
2. Because of the small sample of non-Hispanic Asian
officers (148), their views were not broken out separately but
are included in the overall results.
↩
3. On July 7, 2016, five police officers were shot and killed,
and nine officers were injured, in Dallas when they were
ambushed by a black man who claimed to be angry over recent
police shootings of blacks. This incident occurred while the
police survey was in the field; 6,957 officers were interviewed
before the Dallas shootings, and 960 were interviewed after the
incident.
↩
4. Throughout this report, whenever response options are
combined, net shares are calculated before rounding.
↩
5. The sample includes 148 non-Hispanic Asian officers, too
small to reliably characterize Asian officers as a group or

45. compare them with other racial and ethnic groups. The views of
Asian officers, however, are included in the overall results.
↩