Race, Gender, and Police Violence in the Shadow of Controlling Images

Abstract Despite the emergence of the #SayHerName movement alongside #BlackLivesMatter, research on police encounters is rarely intersectional and has largely neglected the potentially violent consequences of gendered and racialized “controlling images.” Using New York City investigatory stop data (2007–2014), and drawing on controlling images theory, our analysis shows that Black men and women experience higher rates of police violence than White men and women. Within race, analyses indicate that Black men experience more police violence than Black women. The same gender gap exists for Whites, Asians, and Latinx persons, suggesting that broad cultural perceptions of femininity and masculinity shape police violence. However, these gendered frames mostly dissolve in instances of potentially fatal violence, as we find no gender differences within race or ethnicity in these extreme cases with one exception: police point their guns at Black men slightly more than at Black women. Further, the controlling image criminalizing Black men casts a long shadow—police are more likely to use violence on individuals stopped in the company of a Black man across gender, race, and ethnicity. This study provides a comprehensive, intersectional analysis of police encounters, both reaffirming and extending controlling images to understand why race, ethnicity, and gender disparities in state violence experiences persist.