Abstract
Understanding the relationships between immigrants and refugees and the police is a critical research task with implications for both community–police partnerships and the effectiveness of law enforcement efforts. This study contributes to such an understanding by examining perceptions of police and police interactions among Somali immigrants and refugees (both first and second generation) in three communities in the United States and Canada. This article presents in-depth analyses of qualitative interview data and draws upon multiple theoretical perspectives, specifically procedural justice and minority group threat theory. These perspectives have been employed to account for police–minority relationships in other works and we extend their application to a new group. We find that despite some evidence of positive interactions with police, current policing could do more to establish community trust and implement principles of procedural justice with Somalis in the United States and Canada. This article also finds support for the minority group threat theory in that study participants perceive that they experience harsher and more frequent policing due to their multiple marginalized statuses (Black, immigrant, and Muslim). Implications for both Somali immigrants/refugees and law enforcement are discussed.
Despite the growing body of research on police interactions with minorities, little research examines the relationship between police and new immigrant groups (Provine, Varsanyi, Lewis, & Decker, 2016; Weitzer, 2014). Understanding these relationships is quite consequential; there were 42.2 million foreign-born immigrants or children of immigrants, which made up 13.2% of the population in the United States in 2014 (Lopez & Radford, 2015). In addition, in 2016, the United States authorized the arrival of up to 85,000 refugees per year (U.S. Department of State, 2016). Refugees are a subset of immigrants who have fled their country of origin due to armed conflict or persecution and are resettled with legal refugee status after being vetted and approved by a host country. While refugees share many experiences with other immigrants, they also bring unique personal experiences and histories that include trauma and, frequently, unfair or abusive treatment at the hands of authorities. These pasts shape not only the experience and expectations of newly arrived immigrants and refugees but often are passed down to children by refugee or immigrant families. In this article, we seek to understand how members of one particular group of immigrants, Somalis, perceive experiences with law enforcement and how they describe the consequences of this interaction. Somalis are important because of their rapid population increases over the past two decades in response to the civil war of 1991 that displaced large numbers of people. Somalis now represent the largest refugee and immigrant group from Africa, and African-born individuals have doubled their population size in the United States in the past decade (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014).
As Black Muslim immigrants, Somalis face the “triple jeopardy” of being marginalized because of race, religion, and immigration status (Ellis et al., 2010). As racial minorities, they may “inherit” decades of perceptions and practices by law enforcement toward Black citizens. Such increased scrutiny to African Americans may initially draw law enforcement to initiate contact, but the additional stigma of being Muslim and an immigrant presents additional challenges to the police–Somali relationship. Being seen as immigrants and Muslim may shape their experiences with law enforcement, particularly at a time of heightened concern about Islamist extremism. In these ways, how others (including law enforcement) perceive Somali immigrants and refugees in North America may influence the way in which they are treated. Such perceptions carry the added stigma of being perceived as threatening due to their religion and country of origin. While many new immigrant groups may “fit in” and appear to police and others to be Americans, Somalis are distinctive, owing in part to their dress, and the fact that women typically wear head coverings. Such triple jeopardy may influence the frequency with which Somalis are stopped, frisked, and searched but may also shape the type and magnitude of threat that is attributed to the group. Minority group threat theory provides one lens for understanding how the perceived threat of minority groups may relate to the actual (and perceived) experiences of individuals within that group. This theoretical perspective is particularly appropriate owing to the rapid growth of the Somali immigrant population in a few select cities in the United States and Canada. Three of the cities experiencing the largest influx of Somalis in North America (Boston, Minneapolis, and Toronto) are represented in our study.
There is a burgeoning body of research on policing immigrants. This body of research includes case studies that focus on single cities, the use of qualitative methods to gather data from new immigrant groups, surveys of law enforcement, and mixed-methods approaches that combine multiple data collection efforts. In a case study conducted in Phoenix, AZ, Menjivar and Bejarano (2004) examined immigrants’ perceptions of crime and police. They found that new immigrants’ perceptions of local police were colored by their experiences with and perceptions of police in their country of origin. Similarly, Wishnie (2004) conducted a legal analysis of federal and local enforcement efforts of immigration laws. He notes the potential for racial profiling in such efforts. Others like Culver (2004) examined the impact of new immigrants on demand for local policing services. Lewis, Provine, Varsanyi, and Decker (2012) examined policy decisions about immigration enforcement among municipal police departments. Based on the surveys of over 225 police chiefs, they find that immigrant-supportive policies and the presence of a Hispanic police chief predict more immigrant supportive policing. Overall, however, as noted by Weitzer (2014), there is an overall lack of research on relations between immigrant groups and the police, particularly among Hispanics. We find the dearth of research on police and new immigrant groups to be even greater, thus the importance of studies such as this.
The intersectional identities of Somali immigrants shape not only how others see them, but how they see themselves. Experiences intrinsic to being an immigrant, and one’s own identity and identification with society, may contribute to how experiences with law enforcement play out. Procedural justice theory, also described further below, speaks to the importance of perceived fair treatment by law enforcement for shaping both a sense of belonging to society and perceived legitimacy of the law. Thus, understanding Somali perceptions of treatment by law enforcement has important implications for social identity, perceived police legitimacy, and—ultimately—the success of law enforcement. In this article, we briefly describe the historical and current context of Somali immigrants in the United States and Canada and draw upon ideas from both minority group threat theory and procedural justice to better understand Somali experiences and interactions with police. We then use emergent themes derived from qualitative interviews with Somali immigrants to examine these two theories. These themes are built from the perceptions of treatment by the police reported by the members of our sample. They are organized around a larger category of responses that described unfair treatment at the hands of the police and a second, albeit smaller, category of responses that described positive treatment by police. Using these two theories, we examine how each of these theories can help us understand the experience of Somali immigrants with police and ultimately inform better policing practices.
Somali Immigrants and Refugees in North America
Significant numbers of Somalis first arrived in North America as refugees fleeing anarchy and brutal violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ongoing violence and unrest in their home country contributed to a steady influx of Somali refugees over the ensuing decades; within the United States, they are one of the largest refugee groups to be resettled recently, now numbering over 150,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). The ongoing migration of Somalis has produced communities characterized by large numbers of recent arrivals who are more visibly “immigrant” in their language, dress, and culture. Somali women, in particular, are typically visibly identifiable as Muslim owing to their head coverings. Furthermore, newly arriving Somalis tend to settle in neighborhoods where there are already a large number of Somali residents, thus creating areas with large and highly visible immigrant communities such as Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis. However, in other areas—such as Boston, MA—early waves of resettlement have led to a generation of youth that look and act “American” and may be perceived by others as African American. Finally, the Canadian context offers yet another scenario wherein most ethnic Somalis are second generation and may look and feel “Canadian,” but nonetheless are frequently identified as “Somali” due to their mode of dress, and because they reside in areas that are populated by Somali residents such as the Dixon neighborhood in the Greater Toronto Area.
While the vast majority of Somali refugees and immigrants have successfully integrated into host societies, in both the United States and Canada, a small number of Somali youth joining violent extremist organizations has complicated police–Somali relationships. In the United States between 2007 and 2009, a small group of young Somali American men left Minneapolis to fight alongside al-Shabaab militants. This brought high levels of scrutiny to Somali communities by federal and local law enforcement. It also contributed to the creation of a Somali Community Policing program in Minneapolis and the hiring of Somali police officers in that community. More recently, President Trump’s 2017 executive orders on immigration brought attention to Somali immigrants and refugees as potential national security threats temporarily banned from immigrating to the United States. Somalis living in Canada have similarly faced challenges related to youth radicalizing to violent extremism and associated law enforcement responses. A number of Canadian youth are believed to have left to join Al-Shabaab (Joosse, Bucerius, & Thompson, 2015), and more recently, a small number of Somali Canadians have left to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Canadian government’s actions, such as enacting the Anti-terrorism Act (2015), which made changes to Canadian laws to make it easier for law enforcement to surveil and arrest terror suspects, were seen as violating civil liberties and targeting specific religious groups/ethnicities such as Somalis. Thus, while in some ways Somali experiences with police may be shaped by their race, in other ways being immigrant and Muslim may be particularly salient to these relationships and their experiences with the police.
Minority Group Threat Theory and Its Application to Somali Immigrants
Negative interactions between the police and marginalized groups have a long history (Decker, 1981; Kerner Commission, 1968). Such interactions are captured in research that has examined citizen attitudes toward the police and experiences with the police (e.g., Brown & Frank, 2006; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009). This research consistently documents the gulf between police and minority groups (Rojek, Rosenfeld & Decker, 2012). In a recent review of this research, Smith, Rojek, Petrocelli, and Withrow (2017) note four areas of police–citizen interaction: traffic and pedestrian stops, arrest, use of force, and deployment. They conclude their exhaustive review of over 100 empirical studies by noting: “…there is fairly consistent evidence that racial minorities, and particularly Blacks, are disproportionately represented among those stopped, frisked, and searched by the police” (p. 17). Minority group threat theory asserts that certain groups are defined as threatening, for reasons unrelated to actual criminality, and consequently experience formal social control at disproportionately high rates. The minority group threat perspective originates in the work of Blumer (1958) and Blalock (1967). Blumer (1958) drew attention to the efforts of the dominant group to maintain its position, often through the use of prejudicial measures against subordinate groups that threaten their standing and privilege. Blalock (1967) noted that the size of the minority group was positively related to the perceived size of the threat and, concomitantly, efforts to control the group. Jackson (1989) found that the amount of social control in a community, operationalized as the size of the police budget, was directly related to the size of the minority population, not levels of crime (Stults & Baumer, 2007). Although minority group threat theory tends to focus on the relative size of a minority group as a threat indicator, work by Hjerm (2007) examining anti-immigrant attitudes in 20 European countries notes that xenophobia existed independently of immigrant group population size and suggested that national immigration policies and attitudes toward national identity may be more important predictors of perceived threat.
Early research on minority group threat focused on African Americans. However, recent research has explored the relevance of this theory for immigrant groups. Wang (2012) examined the perceptions of the criminal threat posed by undocumented immigrants. She found that the perceived size of that population produced fears regarding the criminal threat posed by undocumented immigrants. Similarly, research conducted in Miami-Dade County shows that the size of the Latino population corresponded to non-Hispanic White residents’ fear of crime (Eitle & Taylor, 2008). Thus, there is evidence that minority group threat theory, particularly the increased perception of threat and the response of formal social control in relation to increased minority group size, is relevant for immigrant populations.
Procedural Justice Theory and Its Relevance for Somali Immigrants
Cynicism toward the law and its implementation has implications for cooperation between citizens and police and is related to both past experiences of police (in the country of origin) and present perceptions of police fairness (Kirk & Matsuda, 2011). There is a growing body of research on procedural justice that underscores the relationship between how people are treated by the police and their stakes in conformity (Tankebe, 2014; Tankebe, Reisig, & Wang, 2016; Tyler, 2004). This research documents that negative experiences and perceptions of unjust treatment by police serve to diminish beliefs in the fairness and efficacy of the law, which in turn diminish the power of the law to control behavior. Four key elements contribute to procedural justice: voice (or citizens having the opportunity to participate in dialogue with authorities prior to a decision being made), neutrality (or fairness in decision-making), respectful treatment (treating others with dignity), and trustworthiness (or the perception that officers are trying to do what’s best for people; Mazerolle, Bennett, Davis, Sargeant, & Manning, 2013; Tyler, 1990). Procedural justice, or the perception of fairness in police interactions, relates to greater perceived legitimacy of, and cooperation with, police as well as compliance with the law (Nagin & Telep, 2017; Tyler & Jackson, 2014).
A growing body of work further suggests that social identity may be an important mechanism explaining why procedural justice is so important to the ultimate effectiveness of law enforcement. Work by Bradford and colleagues in both Australia and the UK has demonstrated that perceptions of police fairness relate to stronger social identity or sense of belonging to the larger nation/society and that this in turn relates to enhanced perceptions of police legitimacy (Bradford, 2014; Bradford, Murphy, & Jackson, 2014); within the UK sample, this was particularly true for UK residents who self-identified as non-UK citizens. Police, as visible representatives of government authority in the United States, may be particularly influential in shaping an immigrant’s sense of belonging and trust in his or her new country; to the degree that police interactions communicate that individuals are a part of the society the police represent, these individuals will theoretically have stronger motivation to adhere to the law.
To date, little is known about the relationships between the police and new immigrant groups. While some research suggests that foreign-born Latinos are less likely to perceive unfair treatment by police than native-born Latinos (Bjornstrom, 2015; Correia, 2010), others have found the opposite to be true (e.g., Livingston & Lopez, 2009). Even less is known about police relationships with specific immigrant groups such as Somali refugees. Such specificity is important as the variation among immigrant groups may be as great as the differences between a single immigrant group and the wider American culture. The process of building trust between new immigrant groups and key social institutions such as law enforcement is critical for theory and policy. This study contributes to such an understanding by examining perceptions of police and police interactions among Somali refugees (both first and second generation) in three communities in the United States and Canada. We frame the results in the context of both procedural justice and minority group threat. These are appropriate conceptual frameworks to use in accounting for police treatment of Somalis for a number of reasons. First, the data reflect the elements of each approach. Perceptions of being targeted as a group reflect the central focus of minority group threat theory. Second, the rapid growth of the Somali population in each of the three research sites also contributes to their perceived threat to order. Third, the specific elements of procedural justice, notably respect, neutrality, and fairness, were specifically identified by respondents as lacking in their interactions with police.
The Current Study
The study is part of a wider program that draws heavily on the principles of community-based participatory research. Somali community partners are involved in each stage of the research including writing the funding proposals, shaping of final research questions, instrument development, implementation, interpretation of analyses, and dissemination. The research team consisted of both Somali and non-Somali staff members. Somali cultural brokers led recruitment efforts, explained the project to participants, and acquired their informed consent and were available to answer questions throughout the interview process. Participation in the study was confidential. The study was fully approved by Boston Children's Hospital institutional review board.
Data and Method
Data
The data used in this study consist of in-depth qualitative interviews of 40 Somali American and Somali Canadian young adults living in three communities across North America: Boston, MA; Minneapolis, MN; and Toronto, Canada. Data for this study are drawn from an ongoing multisite, mixed methods, longitudinal study of psychosocial factors, and diverse outcomes among Somali young adults resettled in North America and were collected between 2013 and 2015.
Participants in the larger study were recruited broadly from their communities. Young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 at the time of first interview who had been living in North America for at least 1 year were eligible to participate. Qualitative interviews took, on average, between 30 and 60 min to complete. Participants were provided an incentive of US$30 to participate. Mean age was 22 years, with an average time in resettlement of 16 years (SD = 5.6). Seventy percent were male, which may reflect differences in gender roles and responsibilities where men are afforded more freedom to engage in activities outside the home (including research). One third of the sample was born in the United States or Canada. Additional demographic information of qualitative sample is presented in Table 1.
Demographic Information for Qualitative Interviewees.
Note. N = 40.
All interviewers used a qualitative interview guide developed by study staff; this group included Somali members of the research team. Interviews were designed to explore salient events or changes in the participants’ lives over the past year including specific probes related to experiences with police. Probes included: “Have you had any interactions with police? Tell me about that. Have you heard of friends or other people you know who have had interactions with police? Do some people have different interactions than others with the police?”
Data Analysis
All 40 interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. Six members of the research team, including two Somali team members, met to review transcripts and develop a coding scheme. First, through multiple iterative steps, the team identified emergent themes and condensed these themes into a shorter list of codes. Four transcripts were used for this process. These codes were then applied to an additional four transcripts and discussed by the full group of coders until consensus was achieved. The team modified the list of codes on the basis of this discussion, condensing related codes where possible, removing unused codes, and adding codes as needed to capture the full range of themes across the eight transcripts. Finally, one member of the research team coded all 40 transcripts (EN), with a second member of the team coding every 10th transcript (AL) to verify reliability. Code reports for police or criminal justice–related codes (incarceration, police, and Somali police) were generated through NVivo Version 10 (2012). Members of the research team then individually reviewed and identified emerging themes in the selected code reports. Finally, the team met as a group to compare, discuss, and ultimately come to consensus on key emergent themes related to police interaction.
Results
Two key themes emerged from our qualitative data. These include (1) experiences of unfair treatment and, to a lesser degree, (2) positive experiences of policing. Further analysis of these thematic areas revealed that all four principles of procedural justice were present in the data, with unfair treatment largely being related to lack of neutrality and disrespectful treatment, while positive experiences largely revolved around the other two principles: trustworthiness and voice. In addition, discussion of ethnic-matched policing spanned both unfair treatment and positive experiences. Finally, the preponderance of data referencing perceived unfair targeting or particularly harsh treatment by police lend support to minority group threat theory, as Somali immigrants perceived themselves to be targeted by the police not for their actions but for their status. Somali immigrants identified police attitudes and actions toward them as reflecting police attitudes toward the group (i.e., all Somalis).
Experiences of Unfair Treatment
Principle 1: Lack of neutrality or fairness in decision-making
The most common theme was feeling unfairly targeted or accused by police. Participants attributed this treatment to multiple statuses and aspects of identity including being Somali, being Black, and being Muslim. Often, our participants described feeling targeted due to the “threat” they present by being Somali and the way in which this related to perceptions of lack of neutrality among police: I mean, the police hate the Somali 'cause of the background. You seen the news?…You know how they say pirates? The Somali pirates. That’s basically saying that Somali youth are bad kids—you better watch out for them. They’re bad. (Male, 19 years, Boston) They [the police] discriminate against the Somali people and downtown cause I got arrested in downtown multiple times and a lot of my other friends always get locked up. They just match faces with something that just happened, so they can match my face right now with another Somali kid that knows if I did something today. You know what I mean? So it’s like messed up, so people be catching cases for discrimination like, um, what was that word I was gonna use? Classify…? Racially profiling…. (Male, 20, Boston)
In each of these instances, participants question whether the decision-making process on the part of the police was driven by fairness (reflecting neutrality) and respect or by stereotypes and profiling. Throughout the interviews, the reasons invoked for this lack of neutrality varied including ethnicity, race, and religion.
Many youth felt that police targeted them specifically because of their country of origin. Frequently, the police-initiated contacts described in these interviews occurred when the youth were in a group and were thus perceived as a greater threat than when they were alone. Some participants described how the police identified the youth in groups by their ethnicity and how that was the motivating factor for police action. Unless the only time that I might get treated with some kind of decency is if I’m alone. If I’m just wearing a tie or just really causal, I’ll be okay and by myself. Or if I’m with a female, I’ll be okay. But if it’s any other way, two or three Somali males, with the hat or even jeans, it’s a whole different game then. (Male, 24 years, Minneapolis) I have three trespassing charges. It’s just like (snaps) boom they come up to me, “Oh, Somalians? Lock them up.” Swear to God. (Male, 20 years, Boston)
Other times youth referred to race as the primary reason for unfair treatment. It’s just if you see anyone walking on a street, anyway, if you see a black person walking with a hood on, they’d stop them. One time I was in a parking lot, and a mall parking lot and it was late and I see three cruisers, undercover cops, they surround the car. They just came. They didn’t ask us anything. They just came and threw all of us on the floor. That’s why I finally found out the police is corrupt. Searched us, didn’t find anything, and just left. (Male, 19, Toronto)
A third threatening aspect of their identity that Somali youth identified was their Muslim religion. Some participants specifically connected their unfair targeting to their Muslim religion and the fact that terrorism investigations were ongoing in their community. One time we were at our house and we had a lot of family over, and we were just having a big movie night. And then we looked outside the window and FBI marshals walked to my dad’s car and they put something in there…And I guess they were keeping tabs on who’s radicalizing kids and everything. And if they knew anything about my dad, they’d know he’s a Sufi, he despises extremists, he doesn’t believe in that. But, mostly it’s just when it comes to the Somali community, because we’re a predominantly Muslim community, it’s mostly racial profiling connected to terrorism, rather than crime. So it’s not the same as the African American community has to deal with. (Female, 19 years, Minneapolis) I had an incident not too long ago where this cop, she pulled me over and said “your lights are out.” Like, “Do you mind if I step out of the car because I know my car gets done maintenance all of the time.” And, “No! You can’t step out! No! Get out of the car right now!” All of a sudden, she has her guns drawn. And she called for backup really quick and when the sergeant came, I was like, “Yo, I’m still holding my hands.” I’m like, “Officer, is there any way that I can just step out and see if my lights are really out.” And I step out and I see that my lights were not even out. So he made her apologize and I didn’t get no ticket at the time and stuff like that. They just wanted an excuse to search my car. (Male, 24 years, Minneapolis)
While much of the discussion of the lack of neutrality involved non-Somali police, some respondents described how having an officer from inside their community could also lead to unfair decision-making. Some participants suggested that tribalism, the lingering identification with Somali sects, was an issue and that officers unfairly targeted those who were not in their tribe. Others suggested that Somali officers were worried about community reputation and so were unduly harsh with youth who they were suspicious of, even if the youth had not done anything wrong. So when you have your own people policing you it’s a lot worse. I live here and there are two Somali officers that work here; they’re absolutely horrible. You can’t smoke a cigarette outside; you can’t walk outside; they tell you that you can’t stand there. Like for example, there are three bars over here.…At nighttime, white people come out and smoke a cigarette…. I’m not racist, but, we come out and smoke a cigarette and boom. I’m like we as Somali people, we can do that too, but we can’t, because they automatically think we’re up to no good, or we’re going to shoot somebody. So they say oh you can’t stand there or we’re going to arrest you for loitering. (Male, 27 years, Minneapolis)
Principle 2: Respect/disrespect
At times, participants talked about how being Somali led not only to unfair targeting but outright disrespect. One participant described overt prejudice related to beliefs about Somali involvement in terrorism. “If cops were a little bit more, like [respectful] and they understood the culture cause some cops would even say the most foulest things like, you know, some of them will say, ‘Terrorists, you wanna go back home now?’ (Male, 24, Minneapolis).
Some of the participants talked poignantly about how rather than helping them, police left them in harm’s way or used physical force without cause or explanation. One participant described being pulled over with his mother and 3-year-old nephew in the car when the temperature was below zero. He goes on to describe his indignation at such behavior by the police in front of family. Despite such indignation, the youth understood the need to avoid putting himself into further jeopardy by challenging the authority of the officer. Such encounters serve to erode the legitimacy of the law and reduce stakes in conformity; here, respectful treatment, a second principle of procedural justice, appears to be violated:
I did what I had to do. I pulled to the right. I, you know, put the window down and they said, “Turn your ignition off.” I was like, “What?” I was not expecting that. I’m like, “What’s g—?” He shouted at me. He’s like, “Shut up and turn the ignition off!” And my mom was right there and my nephew’s right there. He’s a little kid. It’s freaking cold. I had the heat on, you know? And I didn’t wanna make no trouble because this is like 11 PM, so I turn the ignition off. “License and registration.” And I was afraid to even say, “Why did I get pulled over?” because of that attitude that he was already giving me, so I just kept my mouth shut. So he comes back after an hour.
An hour?
Yes! An hour. At this point, we’re like really shaking, very, very cold. And he comes back and says, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” I’m like, “Why did you pull me over?” He said, “You didn’t stop at the stop sign.” I was like, “I did.” He was like, “No, you did not. Step out of the vehicle.” So I stepped out of the vehicle. I told him, “Can I at least turn the, can I get the keys back? My mom and the little kid are in the back.” He was like, “No. Step out of the vehicle.” I stepped out of the vehicle. He took my jacket off. Now I’m like literally shaking; I have a little t-shirt. He started searching me…I’m shaking at this point. It was a horrible experience and ever since that, I will never forget that day. (Male, 27 years, Boston)
Here, again aggressive policing of minor infractions becomes remembered as profoundly disrespectful and demeaning. It is important to note that the stops that generated most aggravation for our subjects were for minor discretionary activities and not arrests for serious crime.
Such experiences are not restricted to males. A 21-year-old female participant described a time when, as a 15-year-old, she had been seriously injured in a fight and stripped of her belongings and shoes. Afraid she was going to die, she spotted a police cruiser and flagged it down. She then goes on to describe how her request for help was ignored: I waved him down and I said, “Help! Help me! I need help!” And I’m bleeding and I’m so weak. I feel like I broke my ribs. And he stopped and he said, “How may I help you?” And I’m just like, “Sir, I need help. I can’t breathe. Just take me to a hospital.” And he drove off. And his cruiser drove off. (Female, 21 years, Toronto)
Positive Experiences: Police as Protectors and Community Builders
Principles 3 and 4: Trustworthiness and voice
In contrast to the unfair treatment and abuses of power that many participants described, some participants perceived the police as helpers and doing a good job. Examples of positive interactions tended to revolve around trustworthiness, or seeing police as having the best interests of the community at heart, or voice—the latter being particularly true in discussions of Somali police officers. Some of these positive perceptions appeared to be directly related to concerted efforts made by police departments to reach out to the Somali community. Some subjects described police attending community or religious events, contributing ice cream to events, or hosting barbeques. Participants shared the ways that police helped teach their community about the role of the police or the laws of the United States. As refugees who came from a country where police frequently abused power and the government lacked institutional legitimacy, experiences that reinforce the notion that police can play supportive roles or foster support for the law may be critically important to generating trust in the U.S. law enforcement. But the law enforcement are with the Somali community too, I think the police are working with the Somali community now, and teaching them that they’re there to help. Like one time, I think it was in Ramadan, the Somali community held Iftar [the meal eaten by Muslims to break fast during Ramadan], and the police were there too to participate in Iftar. (Female, 25 years, Minneapolis)
Notably, even moments of being pulled aside for questioning could be understood in a positive light, especially when officers took the time to talk with youth and allow them “voice” consistent with procedural justice: I took the train, I was going to my house and a cop came inside and asked me [for] a fare. I said I thought the train was free, so I didn’t know that. But then they’re like, you can’t ride the train for free, so we’re going to ask you to step outside and talk to us. And then we had some small conversation…. They were kind of nice, polite. And then they gave me a warning. And then I told them I would never ride without a fee again. I told my mom and she didn’t know that. Every time now if I ride, she says if you take the train, use money and all that. (Male, 21 years, Minneapolis)
The importance of a broader institutional legitimacy for police among recent immigrants was identified by the following subject as a matter of some importance. Maybe they’re meeting with kids, and discussing safety with them, discussing good things to do. When you think police, people think bad things about them, like getting arrested but maybe they’re giving them a different view of that. And that’s good for the kids. If a small kid sees that, that’s good for him, he feels good that the police cares about him. (Female, 25 years, Minneapolis)
Several Somali police officers were employed in communities where participants lived in both Minneapolis and Toronto. In Minneapolis, a specific Somali community policing program had recently been launched. Participant opinions on the value of having Somali officers on staff varied widely. Some youth noted that this was a positive development that helped to bridge cultural and language barriers; some also noted that this provided positive role models for younger Somalis. Such observations are consistent with the recommendations of past Presidential Commissions (Kerner, 1968; Ramsey, 2015). I believe the older Somali people either didn’t trust American cops, or didn’t understand them. So now you have the Somali guy dressed in blue, coming to you like, hey I’m here to help you. It’s more understanding, they’re more likely to cooperate with them in certain cases because they’re Somali; because they understand their language, and their culture…. And I feel like Somali people are more comfortable. I think it’s about time we had Somali cops, because we’ve been here so long, and still 40% of this neighborhood, the adults don’t know how to speak English properly. So they can’t tell the officers what happened to them, or complain to the officer properly. But with a Somali officer, they’ll tell everything that happened, what needs to happen, what needs to change. (Male, 25 years, Minneapolis)
Discussion and Conclusions
Understanding police relations with immigrant groups is a critical first step to establishing unbiased policing and building community–police partnerships (Provine et al., 2016) that can contribute to a reduction in both crime and other problems such as violent extremism. Increasing our understanding of immigrant groups’ experiences with police is one important component of this. This study suggests that both procedural justice theory and minority group threat theory resonate with experiences of Somali immigrants in the United States and Canada, not only for reasons related to race but also in relation to the multiple marginalized statuses of Muslim immigrants.
Consistent with minority group threat theory, participants perceived that they experienced harsher and more frequent policing due to their minority statuses. This theory is particularly appropriate in this context, given the dramatic growth in Somali population in Boston, Minneapolis, and Toronto over the past decade. Participants explained the perceived unfair treatment as being the result of a variety of reasons related to their identity including race (being Black), ethnicity (being Somali), and religion (being Muslim). The perception of unfair treatment due to race reflects a deep history of police/minority relations; this study suggests that police attitudes and practices may extend to newer Black immigrants as well. Further work understanding whether the perception of being treated unfairly due to race is true for recent immigrants, as well as more acculturated, Somalis will be important to understand. If, as minority group threat theory suggests, Somali refugees are targeted in part because of their “blackness,” then they may be at risk for overly harsh policing and, consequently, diminished stake in conformity and trust in police. Particularly in combination with a refugee legacy of trauma and abuses of power by authorities in Somalia, trust in and cooperation with law enforcement by this group may be undermined.
Our data also suggest that Somalis may be perceived as threatening for reasons unrelated to race; specifically, participants discussed the idea that being a Muslim or ethnic Somali automatically contributed to police scrutiny and the perception of them as dangerous. While much of the work surrounding minority group threat theory has focused on the relative size of the minority population as a predictor of perceived threat, it is possible that smaller minority groups may be perceived as threatening when members of that group have been identified with high-profile acts of violence such as terrorism. Political discourse about immigrants and refugees has highlighted how concerns over the threat of terrorism may place smaller groups, such as Syrian or Somali refugees, under suspicion. Further research is needed to understand whether minority group threat theory extends to situations of high-profile violence committed by the members of minority ethnic groups and whether these groups experience overpolicing and unfair treatment as a result.
The importance of understanding the extension of minority group threat theory to smaller populations, such as Somalis, is highlighted by the fact that some high-profile terrorist attacks both domestically and abroad have been committed by immigrants. These events have cast suspicion on Muslim immigrants in general. Furthermore, Somalis have at times been a particular focus of terrorism investigations, while other refugee groups (e.g., Syrians) have become the center of a heated political debate about the safety of our nation’s refugee program. The perception of immigrants as refugees holds profound implications for not only policing but also policy and human rights.
While our data support the notion that Somali refugees experience unfair policing related to aspects of their identity that may be seen as “dangerous” by the majority population, participants also described perceptions of unfair treatment by other ethnic Somalis. These experiences fall outside of what would be predicted by minority group threat theory and may be important to understand in relation to the practice of ethnic-specific policing. Some communities have sought to improve police-immigrant community relations through ethnic-specific policing programs; one example is in Minneapolis, where the police department has taken steps to change how the department interacts with Somali-American citizens in Cedar Riverside. Changes made include hiring more Somali-speaking officers and changing how all officers interact with Somali-American citizens in this community. The Minnesota approach, which is based on the principles of procedural justice and police legitimacy, has been touted as a model for building trust and improving relationships with refugee communities (Chanen, 2014). Within this study, however, the perception of this type of program varied. Some youth felt that bias within the Somali community was a problem and that Somali police officers held tribal bias and/or pigeon-holed certain youth as “bad” and were unfairly punitive toward them. Here, youth may not be perceived so much as threatening in the sense of violent, but rather threatening to the reputation of the Somali community, and the integrity of Somali culture/religion more generally. Further exploration of whether these more existential threats inform policing within cohesive minority communities may help inform more effective ethnic-matched policing programs.
Themes related to procedural justice theory were also salient in the data. Perceptions of unfair treatment largely pointed to conflicts with two of the major principles identified in procedural justice theory: fairness/neutrality and respect. Participants repeatedly linked their poor treatment to their race, religion, and/or ethnicity. This may have negative implications for the success of law enforcement in two ways. First, procedural justice theory suggests that perceptions of unfair treatment are associated with diminished perceptions of legitimacy and, relatedly, compliance and cooperation. Second, because these violations of neutrality and respect were perceived as tied to identity, these experiences may undermine a sense of belonging and community identification among Somali refugees and immigrants. Police, as representatives of the larger nation and society in which immigrants are living, are in a position to help build a sense of identification with society and social institutions (Tyler & Jackson, 2014); our study suggests that current practice instead be contributing to a sense of exclusion and “otherness.” Recent work in procedural justice suggests that the connection between procedural justice and legitimacy may be strongest for those individuals who have a high level of identification with the society the police represent (Huq, Tyler, & Schulhofer, 2011); eroding this sense of identification may weaken the potential power of procedural justice.
Although overall our data suggest that among young Somalis perception of unfair treatment by police is both widespread and serious, positive experiences were also noted. Some talked about police playing more of a community-building role or providing newer immigrants with education and information about the law in a supportive manner. This latter idea—that police may play a particularly important role in education, as well as enforcement—provides an opportunity for establishing positive relations with new immigrants at the outset. For refugees, many of whom may have experienced corrupt and abusive police systems, the idea of police as fair, just protectors may be novel. Capitalizing on early stages of resettlement to build the foundation of trust and understanding of the law may be a particularly useful approach with new immigrant groups. Ethnic-specific policing was also seen by some as a positive development; some youth talked about being able to better access police for support when they are victims of a crime, better cultural understanding, and the opportunity to have a voice.
Implications
The implications of such widespread negative interactions (or perceptions thereof) are manifold. Within the Somali community, youth described how being seen as “in trouble” with the law (whether fairly or unfairly) led to Somali elders viewing that youth as a “bad kid,” a reputation from which it was difficult to recover. In addition, negative experiences of interactions with police may be undermining efforts to build immigrant–police partnerships at a time when they are especially critical. The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (2015) identified community–police partnerships as central to efforts to build community resilience and reduce the risk that youth would be drawn toward violent extremism. Poor police interactions undermine this effort in two ways. First, law enforcement depends on community members to share information if a youth exhibits concerning behavior that may indicate a movement toward radicalization. A willingness to share information with police requires established, trusting relations between law enforcement and community members; perceptions that Somalis are treated unfairly, profiled or receive harsh punishment rather than support and assistance will reduce the likelihood that community members will turn to police for help with vulnerable youth. Second, recent research suggests that a strong sense of belonging and attachment to one’s country is protective in relation to violent extremist views (Ellis et al., 2016); policing practices that alienate Somali community members and contribute to the perception that they are “other,” and “less than” American citizens work against this kind of attachment, and may in fact contribute to less resilient communities in relation to the threat of violent extremism.
Finally, reports of negative experiences reported by Somali youth contribute to the ongoing dialogue around police–minority relations. Recent events in Ferguson, Baltimore, and beyond have given rise to heightened awareness of racial bias in policing. While these events have revolved around African Americans, our data suggest that Somali immigrants also struggle with bias and negative interactions with police that reflect their multiple marginalized statuses of race, religion, and immigration status.
Limitations
The data include only participant perceptions of police interactions and do not include officer perspectives or official records of arrest. Personal accounts may be biased or inaccurate; however, the focus of this investigation is on how police interactions are perceived by the immigrants themselves. In addition, quantitative research will be important to pair with these qualitative data in order to provide more context for the frequency of perceived negative interactions and factors that mitigate or exacerbate these interactions (e.g., acculturation). Finally, while our sample includes participants from several different cities, we cannot determine whether participants are reporting negative experiences with police in the city in which they were interviewed and did not have sufficient sample size to assess potential differences between cities and country. For example, as mentioned above, Minneapolis has made a decision to transform its police practices with Somalis in one ethnic enclave by implementing programs that were informed by procedural justice and police legitimacy approaches. One of the steps taken involved hiring Somali police officers to increase the diversity of the police department and build trust, but some of the youth interviewed perceived that this did reduce some of the negative interaction with police. It is possible that youth interviewed in this city were reporting negative interaction in areas that these programs were not enacted.
We also did not have sufficient sample size to explore differences by city and/or country; further work examining to what degree participant experiences differ by location could provide important direction for “what works” as well as community-level differences in the applicability of the two theories. For instance, are Somalis in some community more likely to be experienced as a threat because of significant population increase relative to the broader population, whereas in other cities, they remain a substantial minority but are stereotyped as dangerous due to high-profile events such as terrorism charges? Further understanding of why, when, and in what contexts Somalis are experienced as threats (or perceive themselves to be) could inform both our understanding of Somali experiences but also whether criminal justice theories need to expand to better capture the experience of multiply marginalized immigrants.
Future Directions
Overall, this data illustrate that despite some evidence of positive interactions with police, significant work remains to be done in establishing community trust and implementing principles of procedural justice with Somalis in the United States and Canada. As the United States and Canada continue to be destinations for new immigrants and refugees, and the populations increasingly reflects the diversity of immigrants and their children, police–immigrant relationships will be critical to understand and improve.
The type of unfair treatment youth reported ranged from stereotyping to acts of outright physical abuse. In addition, some youth described instances where they sought help but were turned away; taken together, these actions have the potential to greatly undermine police–community relations and to create an adversarial relationship between Somalis and law enforcement. Unfair treatment by police may contribute to reduced trust in law enforcement, increased social control, and at the same time challenge enculturation. Such outcomes both diminish opportunities for Somali immigrants and reduce the chances for trust in the police that undermines effective policing. Efforts to improve Somali community–police relations and reduce any actions that may be perceived as unfair targeting of Somalis may contribute to more successful outcomes for both law enforcement and Somali youth themselves.
While this study provides an important window into the experience of young Somali refugees, further research is needed to better understand other immigrant and refugee groups and the degree to which the Somali experience is representative of other African or Muslim immigrants and/or refugees. Our findings also suggest that additional work is needed to understand how the experience of Somali immigrants may push criminal justice theories to more thoroughly address multiply marginalized statuses and sociocultural factors.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
We thank Naima Agalab of the Refugee and Immigrant Assistance Center, who has been a partner in our work with the Somali community from the beginning and has provided leadership and training in their efforts to build community leadership teams in other cities. We thank Somali community advisors Farah Aw-Osman, Fatuma Hussein, Sharif Mohammed, and Rilwan Osman for their guidance and invaluable contribution to this project. We also thank the community youth who took time to share their stories.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative (N00014-13-1-0243) and the National Institute of Justice (2012-ZA-BX-0004 and NIJ 2014-ZA-BX-0014). The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Department of Justice. The authors have no financial or other conflicts of interest regarding this article.