The Racial Confidence Gap in Police Performance

Please use the materials/websites I upload for the sources.

Discussion 1 This is a three parts exercise, in which you will think about how who we are and what we have experienced can influence our perceptions of law enforcement (and everything else!). (You will submit one original post, a reply to that post, and a final reply to your original post. You will be submitting three posts total.) Part I Post a brief response to the following set of questions. Think back to your first memory of learning about who the police are. • What did they represent to you and what is that based on? • Has that impression changed? If so, why? Part II After you finish the above, read along and complete the interactive exercises regarding police body cameras and perspective found at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/01/us/police-bodycam-video.html. Be sure to jot down your responses as you go. Once you have completed the set of exercises, reply to your own part I with a response to the following questions: • What was your response to the first question regarding trust? • Based on how you responded to that first question, were your other responses consistent with the patterns identified in this article? That is, did what they expect would happen actually ring true? How so? How not? • What is the central “take home” message from this set of exercises? • How does that apply to you? That is, what about you do you think most influences your perspective of law enforcement? Part III Last, after reviewing the survey findings on class attitudes toward law enforcement, check out the three links below: • Americans’ Respect for Police Surges https://news.gallup.com/poll/196610/americans-respect-police-surges.aspx

• The Racial Confidence Gap in Police Performance https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/09/29/the-racial-confidence-gap-in-police-performance/ • Understanding Public Attitudes Toward the Police https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/policing-america Next, discuss how the national data compare to class attitudes about the police. Specifically: • Identify at least TWO specific findings/trends in the reports above that you can compare to our class survey results. Explain what the two findings/trends are (and cite which report they are presented in) and how those are the same or different from our class survey results on the same issue. How are they the same/different and how can you explain that? Discussion 2 After reading the two scholarly research articles (I will upload these) on race and police shootings, compare and contrast these works responding to the questions below: 1) What was the research question in each article that the authors sought to answer? 2) How were the research studies the same and different in terms of the research methods they used? (Here you should be drawing upon the sections in each article with the headings “current study/current research” and “method.”) 3) How (and why) were the findings the same or different?