Perceptions of Justice Amidst Protests
Project Summary
This project investigates how Americans judged justice, order, and legitimacy during the 2020 protest wave—and how those judgments shape views of punishment, policy, and politics. Using an original national survey fielded in Summer 2020, we analyze the roles of partisanship, racial ideology, proximity to protest, and imagined targets of punishment and protection.
Project Description
Findings to date identify sharp partisan divides alongside a meaningful bloc of persuadables whose attitudes shift with cues about who is being punished (protesters vs. police) and protected. The project will develop a series of papers on:
- Punitive dissonance (support for sanctions conditioned on who bears the costs),
- Altruistic fear and concern for others,
- COVID-era dynamics in perceptions of risk, order, and protest, and
- Gun purchasing amidst social upheaval.
Publications
- Drakulich, Kevin, and Megan Denver. 2022. “The Partisans and The Persuadables: Public Views of Black Lives Matter and the 2020 Protests.” Perspectives on Politics 20(4): 1191–1208.
Politics and Public Opinion on Crime and Justice
Project Summary
This program investigates how people in the United States think about crime and justice—and how those beliefs shape policy preferences and political behavior. Leveraging data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) from 2006 to the present (including questions proposed by lab members), our work isolates the roles of racial ideology, intersectional threat, partisan cues, and emotions in driving views on policing, protest, punishment, and gun policy.
Project Description
Using multi-wave ANES data, we analyze when and why the public supports police power, criminalization, and punitive responses—and when skepticism toward the criminal legal system emerges. Recent studies show that perceptions of intersectional threat (e.g., race × gender) help explain support for aggressive policing of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and preferences for “law-and-order” gun policies. We also demonstrate how widely shared racial ideologies—related to the “wages of whiteness”—can bolster support for criminalizing knowledge, while altruistic concern varies across groups in ways that shape empathy for Black victims of crime and police violence. Complementary analyses track who recognizes excessive force by police who fail to view the police critically. Earlier ANES-based work maps the emotional politics of crime (anger vs. fear) and documents how the 2016 election linked race, policing, and “dog-whistle” appeals to public opinion.
Across these projects, student collaborators (starred below) are integral at every stage—from question design and measurement to modeling and writing—advancing both the science and training missions of the lab.
Publication
Drakulich, Kevin, Christian Law*, and Ciela Capage*. 2026. “How the Purportedly Unpaid Wages of Whiteness Explain Support for the Criminalization of Knowledge.” Race and Justice. Early online.
Drakulich, Kevin, and Christian Law*. 2025. “Who watches the watchmen? Intersectional threat and public opinion about policing the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.” Social Forces. Early online.
Drakulich, Kevin M., and Cassidy Pereira*. 2025. “Disorder, Incivilities, and Broken Windows.” Drakulich, Kevin M., and Cassidy Pereira*. 2024. “Altruistic concern: how racial ideologies explain racial differences in concerns for Black victims of crime and the police.” Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice. Early online.
Drakulich, Kevin, and Brandon M. Craig*. 2024. “How Intersectional Threat Shapes Views of Gun Policy: The John Wayne Solution.” Social Problems. 71(2) 531-552.
Drakulich, Kevin M. 2023. “Public Opinion and Criminal Justice Reform.” American Journal of Criminal Justice. 47(6): 1166-1185.
Drakulich, Kevin, Jesenia Robles*, Eric Rodriguez-Whitney*, and Cassidy Pereira*. 2023. “Who Believes that the Police Use Excessive Force? Centering Racism in Research on Perceptions of the Police.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 60(1): 112-164.
Drakulich, Kevin, Eric Rodriguez-Whitney*, and Jesenia Robles*. 2023. “A Subtle but Vital Shift in Focus: Why White Americans More Frequently Fail to View the Police Critically.” Du Bois Review 20(1): 57-88.
Drakulich, Kevin, and Megan Denver. 2022. “The Partisans and The Persuadables: Public Views of Black Lives Matter and the 2020 Protests.” Perspectives on Politics, 20(4): 1191-1208.
Drakulich, Kevin, and Andrew J. Baranauskas*. 2021. “Anger versus Fear about Crime: How Common Is It, Where Does It Come From, and Why Does It Matter?” Crime, Law, and Social Change 76:451-472.
Drakulich, Kevin, Kevin H. Wozniak, John Hagan, and Devon Johnson. 2021. “Whose Lives Mattered? How White and Black Americans Felt About Black Lives Matter in 2016.” Law & Society Review 55: 227-251.
Drakulich, Kevin, Kevin H. Wozniak, John Hagan, and Devon Johnson. 2020. “Race and policing in the 2016 presidential election: Black Lives Matter, the police, and dog whistle politics.” Criminology 58(2): 370-402.
Baranauskas, Andrew J.*, and Kevin M. Drakulich. 2018. “Media Construction of Crime Revisited: Media Types, Consumer Contexts, and Frames of Crime and Justice.” Criminology. 56(4): 679-714.
Drakulich, Kevin, John Hagan, Devon Johnson, and Kevin H. Wozniak. 2017. “Race, Justice, Policing, and the 2016 American Presidential Election.” Du Bois Review 14(1): 7-33.
Drakulich, Kevin M. and Eileen M. Kirk*. 2016. “Public Opinion and Criminal Justice Reform: Framing Matters.” Criminology and Public Policy 15(1): 171-77.
Drakulich, Kevin M. 2015. “The Hidden Role of Racial Bias in Support for Policies Related to Inequality and Crime.” Punishment & Society 17(5): 541-574.
Drakulich, Kevin M. and Laura Siller*. 2015. “Presumed Danger: Race, Bias, Stigma, and Perceptions of Crime and Criminals.” Pp. 23-58 in Deadly Injustice: Race, Criminal Justice, and the Death of Trayvon Martin, edited by Devon Johnson, Patricia Warren, and Amy Farrell. New York: New York University Press.
Drakulich, Kevin M. 2015. “Explicit and Hidden Racial Bias in the Framing of Social Problems.” Social Problems 62(3): 391-418.
