Effect of Implicit and Explicit Prejudice on Perceptions of Drug Users of Different Races

Even to this day, members of the Black population involved in drug use are being subjected to high rates of imprisonment and are receiving a lower quality of health care in comparison to White drug users. This study proposes that the disparities in how society treats Black drug users are in part due to the way people’s perception of drug users differs based on the race of the target. In addition, this study sought to examine how these perceptions are predicted by implicit and explicit racial prejudice. To test these research questions, college students (n = 99) were randomly assigned to view an electronic court case record of a White or Black drug user or a drug user of an unspecified race, and asked to make judgments about them; explicit and implicit bias towards Blacks was measured. Results revealed that the higher the levels of explicit prejudice towards Black drug users and drug users of an unspecified race, the more they are associated with negative stereotypical traits and the more people predict them to be able to commit more serious crimes in the future, compared to White drug users. We also found that people perceived that Black drug users would be less successful in the future compared to drug users of an unspecified race if provided with health treatment. Gaining a better understanding of the underlying reasons behind racial disparities in the criminal justice system is important to instigate reforms to the system and to the quality of health care offered to drug users of different races. EFFECT OF RACIAL PREJUDICE ON PERCEPTIONS OF DRUG USERS 4 Effect of Explicit and Implicit Prejudice on Perceptions of Drug Users of Different Races Racial disparities in incarceration rates have plagued the United States for decades. According to “The Impact of Crack Cocaine on Black America” (Hendricks & Wilson, 2013), 85% of crack cocaine users who were incarcerated during the American crack epidemic between 1984 and the early 1990s were Black. Although today’s heroin epidemic is mostly perpetuated by the suburban, White, middle-class population (Cicero, Ellis, Surratt, & Kurtz, 2014), according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Blacks still make up more than 50% of drug users who get arrested. Simultaneously, more programs have been designed to reduce the imprisonment of White drug users, to encourage police officers to direct them to social workers instead of immediately putting them in jail and to provide easier access to medical attention and treatment. In contrast, Black drug users typically get less assistance for life-threatening medical issues (Netherland & Hansen, 2016). The purpose of the current study is to explore differences in perceptions of Black and White drug users, and whether these perceptions are affected by implicit and explicit prejudice. This is imperative to help us understand the causes behind disparities in health treatment and the likelihood of incarceration between Black and White drug users. There are disparities in the comprehensive health treatment offered to racial minorities compared to that offered to Whites. This is often associated with the health facilities that are available to racial minorities and on the cultural sensitivity of the health programs. A recent study by Acevedo and colleagues (2015) studied the health treatments offered to Whites and to minorities. The treatment can consist of inpatient admissions, outpatient rehabilitation, or programs that offer partial hospitalization. Of particular interest is patients’ likelihood of treatment engagement, which refers to the provision of more services within a month of being on EFFECT OF RACIAL PREJUDICE ON PERCEPTIONS OF DRUG USERS 5 medical treatment. More treatment engagement was connected to a lower probability of abusing drugs afterwards and of getting arrested. The researchers observed the start of treatment, treatment engagement, and incarceration rates based on race in samples of adult patients grouped by state (Acevedo et al., 2015). They reported that in most states, Blacks tended to have lower treatment initiation and treatment engagement rates compared to Whites. Even though it was not consistent across all the states they examined, they also found that in a few of those states, patients who experienced treatment engagement had lower arrest rates afterwards. Not only could the health of minorities be ameliorated if they were provided with better support and health resources, but having better health care options could also limit the harsh effects of the criminal justice system. There are also racial disparities in whether drug users are determined as eligible to receive health treatment in lieu of incarceration. Black drug users are more prone to incarceration compared to White drug users even though both races use drugs at similar rates (Nicosia, MacDonald, & Pacula, 2017). When it comes to drug sentences, this disparity has serious consequences on the lives of imprisoned Blacks. Being incarcerated leads to the loss of various rights such as the ability to vote or to receive aid in the form of welfare programs, veteran advantages, and food stamps (Olson, 2016). They may also struggle to find a well-paid job after being released from prison, which makes it virtually impossible to obtain proper health care. As a result of these disparities, the system promotes a vicious cycle that is unfair and deleterious to the Black population. One reason for the difference in the treatment between Blacks and Whites may be the dichotomy in cultural stereotypes between the two groups. Activation of these cultural stereotypes is contingent on the visual cues that perceivers use to associate individuals with EFFECT OF RACIAL PREJUDICE ON PERCEPTIONS OF DRUG USERS 6 particular social categories such as race, gender, or age. This process is termed social categorization (Bartholow & Dickter, 2008). People use social categorization in order to reduce the cognitive load associated with individuating others, or distinguishing every individual with whom they interact. By grouping individuals together by their social group, perceivers are able to simplify the task of forming their perception of each individual, and avoid having to understand each one, separately. The salience of a certain categorization can dominate how perceivers choose to form their impression (Macrae, Bodenhausen, & Milne, 1995). Furthermore, the perceivers’ own goals and how prejudiced they are towards different social groups can also play an influential role in social categorization. These ways of categorizing people allows perceivers to form an impression of the target quickly and conveniently. However, they can simultaneously cause stereotype activation, which in turn, leads to biased judgments about the target that are not based on his or her own unique characteristics (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000). Due in part to the frequent distorted portrayal of Blacks in the media, Blacks are often perceived as more violent, impulsive, and menacing than Whites, and are often unfairly stereotyped as criminals and drug users (Najdowski, Goff, & Bottoms, 2015; Welch, 2004). These stereotypes lead people to make unreliable predictions concerning the traits and behaviors of Black individuals and instigate the formation of negative impressions about Black drug users (Kunda & Thagard, 1996). Accordingly, crimes that Blacks commit tend to be perceived as more abhorrent than if those same crimes were committed by Whites, and “unlike progressive trends in other racial attitudes, associations between race and crime have changed little in recent years” (Duncan, 1976; Pager, 2008, p. 3). When Black people commit a crime, people have the tendency to believe that it is due to them being supposedly inferior, whereas when White people commit a EFFECT OF RACIAL PREJUDICE ON PERCEPTIONS OF DRUG USERS 7 crime, people tend to blame it on environmental circumstances such as being under the poverty line (Olson, 2016). Additionally, since Blacks are incarcerated more frequently than other races, they are often targeted as the main source of the U.S.’s drug problem and are more likely to be associated with drug use and crimes in general, by the public (Welch, 2007). Welch (2007) reported that local media sources often depict Blacks in more threatening situations than Whites, which makes the public grow more wary of Black criminal suspects than White criminal suspects. To investigate whether the punishment of inmates in prison was related to race and whether this was due to negative stereotypes that prison guards have about Black inmates being more violent, confrontational, and criminal, Olson (2016) looked specifically at how likely Black inmates were to be put in solitary confinement, which is one of the harshest types of punishments enforced in prisons, compared to inmates of other races. They found that there is a racial bias against Black inmates and that they have a 31.6% chance of being subjected to solitary confinement compared to White inmates, who have a 25.6% chance (Olson, 2016). Being forced into solitary confinement, in turn, eventually leads to higher rates of recidivism, or inclination to commit a crime again, among Black inmates. This perpetuates the cycle by causing them to be more prone to get arrested and, then once in jail, they become more likely to undergo harsh punishment that encourages even more criminal actions. Race-based judgments have a profound impact on the treatment of Black and White drug users and on the level of sympathy and understanding that they each receive (Jussim, Eccles, & Madon, 1995). Even though Whites are increasingly using illegal drugs, the public still has the tendency to picture drug users as people from Black populations in inner-city neighborhoods that deal cocaine and crack (Gaston, 2016). Furthermore, they also perceive Black drug users more EFFECT OF RACIAL PREJUDICE ON PERCEPTIONS OF DRUG USERS 8 negatively than Whites due to more Blacks mov