Abstract
My research team's technical report explores the sources of disproportionate minority contact, which is the overrepresentation of certain minority groups in the criminal justice system as compared to the general population. Past research into disproportionate minority contact focused primarily on race as an indicator of disproportionality and on the juvenile justice system. We expand the scope of this research to explore how socioeconomic conditions affect how often adults in the Jefferson Area (the city of Charlottesville, Virginia and the surrounding counties) enter the criminal justice system.
To do this, we combine data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail (ACRJ) to determine that an individual’s socioeconomic status has a large bearing on how often they are booked into jail – our definition of “contact.” We use the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder to map addresses in the jail booking data to census tracts in Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville. We then use data analysis techniques including cluster analysis, multifactor ANOVA, and principal component analysis on this combined dataset to analyze similar census tracts, the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of each, and the frequency of jail bookings in each. Through our analysis, we find that a specific census tract’s socioeconomic conditions are the primary factors that influence the tract’s booking rate, and the higher frequency of minority bookings is tied to the fact that less affluent tracts tend to have a higher minority population.
The United States public often distrusts the police force, seeing it as corrupt and racist. My STS paper explores how this notion can be dispelled by investigating how public trust in the police can be improved in the United States. The public often distrusts the police, and this distrust is heightened among people of minority races. Statistics demonstrate a divide in how the police and public view deadly black-police encounters and how people of different races tend to have different opinions on them. These differences in trust stem from notable cases of police brutality that swept across the news, including the Michael Brown killing and the Rodney King beatings.
In the wake of Michael Brown’s death, police agencies across the country quickly began wearing body-worn cameras, or bodycams. Bodycams are important for providing transparency between the police and the public by documenting police-public encounters, but they cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution to improving trust in the police. There is a lack of standardization in bodycam use policies across agencies which could cause inconsistencies in when bodycams are used. The close perspective of bodycam footage can bias viewers against the officer, and viewers’ inherent racial biases can also affect how they interpret bodycam footage. Furthermore, the George Floyd murder demonstrates that even when bodycams are used, public trust in the police can still be eroded.
Bodycams cannot solve the problem of a lack of trust in the police on their own, but policy changes by police agencies can go a long way towards doing so. First, police officers should receive more training time in order to be better equipped for their duties. Police training should also be adjusted to include a greater focus on community-oriented policing and legal topics. This would help the public see police less as aloof soldiers and more as approachable protectors. Second, agencies should place additional emphasis on community-oriented policing practices to build rapport with the community. These can include holding community feedback meetings, offering activities for local youth, and hiring school resource officers. Third, agencies should make the public more aware of the ways police improve the community. By showcasing heartwarming community interactions and high-quality police work, agencies can remind the public of all the good they do for the community. Finally, agencies should promote and increase the accessibility of police ride-along programs so that community members can get a firsthand glimpse into what officers do day-to-day. These policy changes can combine with bodycam use to reassure the public that the police really do protect and serve.
My technical and STS projects are primarily motivated by the overarching goal of improving the U.S. criminal justice system. My technical project focuses specifically on understanding how socioeconomic factors affect disproportionate minority contact in Charlottesville, Virginia and the surrounding counties, while my STS project explores how public trust in the police can be improved in the U.S. as a whole. One key angle that both projects take is looking beyond simply blaming police officers for inequality in the justice system. Through analysis of U.S. census and ACRJ booking data, my technical project reveals how an individual’s socioeconomic status is a key indicator of their likelihood of entering the justice system. Police officers themselves have less control over who gets booked into jail than many people may realize. Similarly, my STS project helps to mitigate the antagonism that police officers face from the media. While past cases of police brutality and racism paint police in a negative light, these cases are not representative of the police as a whole. Through my suggested policy changes for police agencies, I hope these agencies can make this clear to the public. Put together, my technical and STS projects should give readers a better understanding of the justice system and equip them with strategies for making the system more equitable for all involved.
