Perceptions of Racial Inequality and Attitudes Toward the Criminal Justice System: Results from the 2022 General Social Survey

The criminal justice system continues to reflect deep-rooted racial disparities that are linked from historical injustices that still shape legal outcomes.Modern perceptions of racial inequality influence public attitudes and criminal justice policy, often shaping views that obscure structural roots of inequality in the justice system.This study uses data from the 2022 General Social Survey (GSS) to examine how structuralist and individualistic perceptions of racial inequality are correlated with attitudes towards the criminal justice system and views of the government's role in addressing racial disparities.Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions revealed that structural explanations of inequality correlate with the belief that courts are too harsh and the government has a responsibility to address it.Conversely, individualistic explanations of inequality showed that courts are not harsh enough and the government has no responsibility to help racial inequality.The results are consistent even when accounting for other potential spurious factors such as race, income, gender, age, religion, college education, region, and political identification.This research finds structural explanations of inequality align with recognition of systemic racial disparities in the criminal justice system.However, when individualistic explanations are used, racialized blame is reinforced, which serves to perpetuate the persistence of racial inequality.