Article Middle Eastern Terrorist Stereotypes and Anti-Terror Policy Support: The Effect of Perceived Minority Threat Kelly Welch 1 Abstract Tests of the minority threat theoretical perspective have established that the common association made between crime and Black and Hispanic males is mani- fested, to some degree, in harsh approaches to crime control. Particularly since 9/11, a close association is also being made by the public between terrorism and those perceived to be of Arab or Muslim descent—a phenomenon coinciding with the implementation of intense social controls aimed at preventing terror attacks and punishing suspected terrorists. Using a national sample, this research is the first to explore the micro-level minority threat hypothesis in relation to those who are perceived to be Middle Easterners. Results of multivariate analyses indicate that those who typify terrorists as Middle Eastern are more likely to support punitive anti-terror techniques and that this relationship is more influential among those for whom the danger of terrorism is less salient. These findings not only suggest that the effects of minority threat extend beyond the racial and ethnic groups previously found to be stereotyped as law violators to others whose minority status is not as distinctly delineated, but that they also operate beyond the criminal justice insti- tutions research has demonstrated are influenced by them. Policy implications are discussed. Keywords minority group threat, criminological theories, stereotypes, terrorist profiling, terrorism, terrorist era policing, race and policing 1 Department of Sociology and Criminology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA Corresponding Author: Kelly Welch, Ph.D., Department of Sociology and Criminology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, 274 Saint Augustine Center, Villanova, PA 19085, USA. Email: kelly.welch@villanova.edu Race and Justice 1-29 ª The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2153368715590478 raj.sagepub.com at VILLANOVA UNIV on July 21, 2015 raj.sagepub.com Downloaded from