Skip to main content
Palgrave Macmillan

Race, Immigration, and Social Control

Immigrants’ Views on the Police

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

  • Examines critical issues in the policing of immigrants
  • Focuses on the views of the US police among Chinese, Hispanic and Arabic immigrants
  • Asks whether race and ethnicity play a role in immigrant-police relations
  • Discusses whether immigrants pose a threat to public safety

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

eBook USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (8 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This book discusses the issues surrounding race, ethnicity, and immigrant status in U.S. policing, with a special focus on immigrant groups’ perceptions of the police and factors that shape their attitudes toward the police. It focuses on the perceptions of three rapidly growing yet understudied ethnic groups – Hispanic/Latino, Chinese, and Arab Americans. Discussion of their perceptions of and experience with the police revolves around several central themes, including theoretical frameworks, historical developments, contemporary perceptions, and emerging challenges. This book appeals to those interested in or researching policing, race relations, and immigration in society, and to domestic and foreign government officials who carry law enforcement responsibilities and deal with citizens and immigrants in particular. 


Reviews

“Sun and Wu’s book presents some guidelines for academic researchers to investigate immigrants’ perceptions of the police. This book can also be useful to those who teach undergraduate or graduate policing classes where the instructor wants to discuss various challenges of the American police and critical thinking about the police-community relations in multicultural society.” (Jaeyong Choi, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, Vol. 30 (4), 2019)

“Sun (Univ. of Delaware) and Wu (Wayne State) focus on Latino, Chinese, and Arab immigrants’ perceptions of police in the US and the various factors that shape their views. They provide a summary of research available on the topic and report on their own scholarly work. … Given the rise of xenophobia in the US and increased use of local police to enforce immigration laws, this is a timely book. … Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” (M. Escobar, Choice, Vol. 56 (03), 2018)​
“Immigration is one of the biggest stories of the 21st Century - everywhere, people are on the move. This timely book considers the contested status of police-immigrant relations in the United States. It outlines commonalities within the immigrant experience, then digs into the factors that differentiate how various groups have been received. The fascinating results challenge simple assumptions about both policing and new arrivers, and point to strategies for better serving the needs of all Americans. Highly recommended.” (Wesley G Skogan, Northwestern University)

“This book provides the first major, substantive, potentially foundational treatment of a large complex tapestry – namely, the views held toward the police by the Latino, Chinese, and Arab community immigrants in the US.  Not only does this book compile a first-rate summary of the as yet scant research available, but it also reports noteworthy findings from original research conducted by the authors for this book.  This is a must read book for scholars, police leaders, and civically-engaged citizens wishing to be part of the solution rather than remaining part of the problem.” (Nicholas P. Lovrich, Washington State University)

“The authors should be congratulated for publishing this timely work on immigrants and their views on the police.  The book will surely become a standard work of references for all those who seek to understand this important and inseparable component of the US population, regardless who is the president.” (Liqun Cao, University of Ontario Institute of Technology)

“These authors bring both clarity of thought and methodological rigor to a red hot topic of public interest. The book elegantly analyses the theoretical and practical issues and implications for those who would seek to develop police practices that foster trust and confidence among those groups who have come to entertain distrust towards police.” (Bill Hebenton, University of Manchester)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Delaware, Newark, USA

    Ivan Y. Sun

  • Wayne State University, Detroit, USA

    Yuning Wu

About the authors

Ivan Y. Sun is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at University of Delaware, USA. His research interests include police attitudes and behavior, public evaluations of criminal justice, and crime and justice in Asian societies. He has published three books and more than 80 refereed journal articles.

Yuning Wu is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Wayne State University, USA. Her research interests include citizen perceptions of criminal justice, police behavior and attitudes, victimization and fear of crime. She has published over 50 refereed journal articles in these areas. 

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us