Demonstration Project

Grade: 81/105 (The paper focuses on the past research (i.e., how many articles have been reviewed and what they said) instead of on the actual findings from the readings. The findings are discussed predominantly in one sentence or not at all.)
Demonstration Project
Annotated Bibliography
William Bechtel
University of Cincinnati
September 15, 2015
Alpert, G., MacDonald, J., and Dunham, R. (2005). Police suspicion and discretionary decision
making during citizen stops. Criminology, 43: 407-434. 5/5
Alpert, McDonald, and Dunhum (2005) established that empirical studies that examine the social process affecting how the police form suspicions are limited. However, the authors believed that the social process affecting how police officers form suspicions is important to the justice system. It is because the social process determines whether an individual will be arrested, which forms the basis for the entire justice system. It is the reason why the authors conducted a study to examine the situational, demographic, and racial variables and how police suspicion. Consequently, the authors collected data from an observational study in Savannah, Georgia. The results of the study indicate that the minority status influences how the police form suspicions about their suspects. The study also revealed that the police could form suspicions because of an individual’s minority status, but the police did not try to stop the suspects from committing crimes based on their suspicions.
Black, D. (1971). The social organization of arrest. Stanford Law Review, 23: 1087–111. 3/5 (General findings are missing.)
Black (1971) wanted to examine the social conditions that influence a police officer’s decision to make or not make an arrest. As a result, the author examined variables such as the legal gravity of the alleged crime, the suspect's race, the proof present in the field setting, the accuser's choice of police action, the social association between the suspect and plaintiff; the suspect's magnitude of respect toward the police; and how the police decide to handle an incident. Critical to the discussion is the fact that the author used a 1966 data, which was collected from an observational study in Washington D.C., Chicago, and Boston. Consequently, the author analyzed data from the observational study and provided descriptive statistics on all the variables mentioned above. Further, it is vital to highlight that Black (1971) results indicate that a suspect’s race, association with the plaintiff, respect, proof, and gravity of the alleged crime affected how police officers form their suspicions. Ultimately, the author suggests topics such as arrest and political power as possible topics for further studies.
Engel, R., and Calnon, J. (2004). Examining the influence of drivers’ characteristics during
traffic stops with police: Results from a national survey. Justice Quarterly, 21: 49–90. 4/5
The authors acknowledge that scholars concur that racial profiling affects how police officers make their decisions on whether to arrest suspects. It is because the authors cite that racial profiling could be traced back to the war on drugs. It is notable to highlight that E...