Critical Review of three Scholarly Journal Articles Essay

One of the most important finding generated by this paper is the effects of race on the view that police is biased on race. This includes racial profiling of police where Black or minority group in general are most like stopped by police than White American. In all four models, blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to believe that police bias is a problem (Weitzer & Tuch, 2005). Blacks however, according to this article perceives police bias more of a problem than Hispanics. One interesting subset of this is that Blacks tend to perceive police discrimination against Hispanics than Hispanics see themselves. So that Black Americans tend to see that Hispanic drivers are being racially profiled compared to white drivers. Another important finding presented by this article is the role of media in shaping the perceptions of people regarding racial discrimination. People who frequently hear or read about incidents of police misconduct, as transmitted by the media, are inclined to conclude that the police engage in racial profi ling, are prejudiced, and discriminate against minority individuals and neighborhoods (Weitzer & Tuchs, 2005). The data gathering method and analysis technique used in this article is solid considering that it is based on a national survey of national survey of 1,792 white, African American, and Hispanic adult residents of U. S. metropolitan areas with at least 100,000 population (Weitzer & Tuch, 2005). The survey results where advantageous in the sense that oversampling African Americans and Hispanics, in contrast to the small number of minority respondents common to other surveys. Another advantageous factor is the tapping of both attitudes toward police and personal and vicarious experiences with the police. Another very important correction factor they have added is idea that there are differences in the number of households with phone access from the three different races, Black, Hispanics and White American. This is very important consideration since the data was collected using random dialing of phone numbers. So in general the data was very reliable. Race-Based Policing: A Descriptive Analysis of the Wichita Stop Study Unlike the previous article which discusses racial discrimination of policing in a wider perspective, this article focuses on racial profiling. The results of this rigorous effort put on the analysis of enforcement pattern do not prove race-based policing. The result of this document instead provides guidance for what are needed on studies to determine if race is a significant determinant for police to decide whether to stop them for inspection or not. According to this article, in order to fully understand the results of these decisions we must document the process by which these decisions are made (Withrow, 2004). Unfortunately, nothing in this data-set or any similar data-set is capable of such an analysis (Withrow, 2004). Although important findings emphasized by this study is that police awareness of the incorrect conceptions of well-established beliefs regarding race plays an important role in dealing with this sensitive police profiling issue. It is however certain that by asking the appropriate questions police administrators have a real opportunity to raise their department’s level of sensitivity to the issue (Withrow, 2004). One important finding that supports this idea is the result of this study that the proportions of searches that produces contrabands does not vary with race. The data gathering method used in this study is based on qualitative information recorded on every police stops from the Wichita Stop Study Dataset and the analysis technique are based on logical reasoning. In late July 2001 representatives from the Wichita Police Department provided the author with a data-set representing the first six months of collected information including 37,454 stops (Withrow, 2004). What is interesting about this data is that to date (relative to this article) this is the largest qualitative data set of this type. This provides reliability of the data gathered and provides validity of the results of this study. Perceptions of Racial Profiling: Race, class and Personal Experience The important result study is to provide a significant basis for the need to examined both race and class determinants of citizens’ relation with the police. In the discussions provided by the author, it was indicated that disadvantage black are more likely to believe that police are abusive of African American because of their personal experience. Another very important point generated in the discussion is with regard to racial profiling. We found that better educated African Americans are more likely than are less educated to disapprove of profiling, to view it as a pervasive practice, and to say that they have personally experienced it (Weitzer & Tuch, 2002). The authors argued that the reason for this is that higher education fosters greater exposure to media and information related to profiling problems. The data gathered were collected from a nationwide random-digit-dialing telephone survey of 2006 respondents conducted by the Gallup organization between September 24 and November 16, 1999 (Weitzer & Tuch, 2002). This offers reliability on the data gathered and considering it has the same strength of oversampling African Americans. Couple this data with various related literature from refutable sources, the data collection are quite valid. The analysis employed in the discussion where supported by citations from previous studies which further validates the ideas presented. CONCLUSION The important results generated by these documents suggest that minority group and Black American in particular, perceives that racial discrimination in the form of racial profiling is an issue. Through proper police awareness of incorrect conceptions that race is a factor that determines people tendency to commit crime, the sensitivity of this issue can be controlled. Couple this with the important role of education in providing proper understanding of the situation there is a possibility of correcting this perception. References Weitzer, R. & Tuch, S. (2005). Racially Biased Policing: Determinants of Citizen Perception. Social Forces from the University of Carolina Press, 83 (3), 1009-1028. Withrow, B. (2004). Race-Base Policing: A Descriptive Analysis of the Wichita Stop Study. Police Practice and Research, 5 (3), 223-240. Weitzer, R. & Tuch, S. (2002). Perceptions of Racial Profiling: Race, Class, and Personal Experience. Criminology, 40 (2), 435-453.