Assessing Police Violence and Bias Against Black U.S. Americans: Development and Validation of the Beliefs About Law Enforcement Scale. (1st October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lemieux, Catherine; Kim, Youn; Brown, Kimberly M.; Chaney, Cassandra D.; Robertson, Ray V.; Borskey, Erma J.
• Is Part Of: Journal of social work education. Volume 56:Number 4(2020)
• Page Start: 664
• Page End: 682
• Publication Date: 2020-10-01
• Subjects: Social work education -- Periodicals; Social work education -- United States -- Periodicals; 361.305
• DOI: 10.1080/10437797.2020.1764893
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1043-7797

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Measurement of U.S. American community members' perceptions of police historically has failed to assess police bias, violence, and accountability in Black communities. Rooted in critical race theory, conflict theory, and a substantial corpus of self-reported survey research methodology, the present study describes the development of the Beliefs About Law Enforcement (BALE) scale. Guided by a multidisciplinary and multiracial panel, whose members possess the requisite substantive and methodological expertise, BALE scale items were constructed and factor analytic techniques were performed using a purposive sample of 288 MSW, BSW, and undergraduate child and family study students. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the factor structure of the original 18-item BALE scale (Model 1). A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis yielded indexes indicating that the fit for the second order 15-item model was improved (Model 2) as compared to Model 1. The BALE scale achieved good internal consistency reliability (α=.87, composite reliability=.96). Limitations of the study are delineated and the utility of the BALE scale in developing and furthering knowledge in social work education and research is discussed.