Arrest Rates In Low-Income Communities

1296 Words6 Pages
Ishmael Hawkins SOC 318 Schewe HW 2 I am studying arrest rates among persons living in economically disadvantaged communities, because i want to know the extent to which individuals living in low-income areas are predisposed to getting arrested for various crimes. I am studying this in order to help readers better understand disparities in arrest rates between communities of different economic standing. Secondly, I hope for this study to stimulate further discourse on the socioeconomic factors that can influence an individual’s chance of facing police apprehension. This is important, because to comprehensively and efficiently address crime in low-income communities, we must first be cognizant of concrete arrest-rate statistics, and also be…show more content…
Surveys involve asking questions to a subset of a population of interest, and gathering data through their responses. In surveys given to those living in economically disadvantaged areas, I will first ask questions pertaining to their income and source of income, (occupation? legally legitimate or non-legitimate?), and their number of arrests and level of offenses (i.e. misdemeanor, or felony?). For those in the subset who have not faced arrest, I will ask them the aforementioned questions, but about their family members and close acquaintances. At the end of the questionnaire I will ask questions pertaining to subjects’ personal perceptions about policing tactics in their respective neighborhoods, and their own perceived social and legal disadvantages. I will distribute these surveys once. The survey method will aid in my analysis on arrest rates in economically disadvantaged communities, as I will attain useful statistics on arrest rates through the answers of my respondents. If the survey shows that arrest rates are high in these communities, it will aid in my assertion that people living in these communities have a high probability of getting arrested. A possible setback in the survey approach is response bias; respondents may be reluctant to express such personal issues (income and criminal records), and may present misinformation. Also, a multitude of the subset may…show more content…
This article employs the method of secondary data analysis. Secondary data analysis involves taking data that was previously collected by another person or organization for a certain purpose, and then using that data to help the purpose of your own study. In this study about urban crime rates, Krivo and Peterson used 1990 census data, and local-agency crime data to view crime rates from various census tracts in Columbus, Ohio. The authors used this data, previously collected for another purpose, to make the case that extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods are highly conducive to criminality, and that black communities on average have more violent crime due to their higher degrees of economic disadvantage. A weakness of secondary data analysis in this case is that the authors had to trust that the crime data was collected using valid and efficient measures to ensure its credibility. Given that the Census Bureau strives to present the most accurate representations of social data, and that it is a collaborative effort (as opposed to one person collecting all of the data), I hold it to be relatively reliable and free from biases, so Krivo and Peterson chose good secondary data to analyze. A benefit of secondary data analysis in this case is that the authors were able to analyze more data than they could readily collect by themselves. Since they are analyzing multiple data sources and

More about Arrest Rates In Low-Income Communities

Open Document