Policing the Ghetto Underclass: The Politics of Law and Law Enforcement

Studying traffic stop encounters

“…Similar to the findings of other studies (Cordner et al, 2000;Lichtenberg & Smith, 2001;Verniero & Zoubek, 1999;Zingraff et al, 2000), Central City data suggested that searches were not common, occurring in only 2,511 (8.2 percent) of the traffic stops. The discovery of contraband during searches was also an uncommon event, occurring in 414 traffic stop encounters (16.5 percent of encounters with searches; 1.4 percent of all encounters); this low rate of discovery was found in other studies of police searches (Chambliss, 1994;Cordner et al, 2000; Lichtenberg & Smith, 2001). Data on contraband discoveries might be contrasted with search rates as one way of assessing the accuracy of police discretion; a disproportionate search rate for a given category of drivers might be legitimated if the contraband discovery rate was similarly disproportionate.…”

The impact of state sentencing policies on the U.S. prison population

“…This massive increase in the prison population led to a proliferation of research into explanations of this greater than fivefold increase in the last quarter century, after a hundred years of near stability. Some of this research focused on such factors as changes in crime and arrest rates (Cohen & Canela-Cacho, 1994;Greenfeld, Beck, & Gilliard, 1996;Langan, 1991), some on demographic factors (Langan, 1991;MacKenzie, Tracy, & Williams, 1988), the war on drugs (Chambliss & Chambliss, 1994;Langan, 1991;Mauer, 2002), or prosecutorial policies (Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1996). A substantial amount of research also focused on the impact of sentencing reforms (Austin, Jones, & John, 1995;Blumstein, 1998;Furniss, 1996;Mauer, 2002;Sabol & Lynch, 1997;Wicharaya, 1995;Zimring & Hawkins, 1991).…”

It's Official: Predictors of Self-Reported vs. Officially Recorded Arrests

“…While the research findings reported in this article do not include observational measurements of arrest, previous studies that do use this measure are relevant here, as they most fully examine various aspects of the arrest event and suggest appropriate predictors of the outcome (Black & Reiss, 1970;Brown, 1981;Brunson, 2007;Chambliss, 1994;Piliavin & Briar, 1964;Werthman & Piliavin, 1967). As stated previously though, directly observing arrests often limits sample sizes as well as the representativeness of the sample.…”