100 words 1 references
Horace
Thesis Statement:
Affirmative action is unconstitutional but necessary in the field of law enforcement because officer diversity is a key component to police legitimacy and maintenance of order.
One hint that I feel will be effective in compiling quality research is creating a working outline in order to determine variations that can be entered into the search query. Even though my thesis is concentrated on affirmative action, there are other terms which will support diversity in policing. Such search terms which are pertinent to affirmative action in policing are:
Gratz v. Bollinger
Grutter v. Bollinger
Hopwood v. Texas
Police subculture AND diversity
Diversity in police management
Supervisor AND subordinate relationship in policing
Impact of Hispanic police officers
Impact of Black police officers
Impact of Female police officers
Impact of Asian police officers
Hot spot policing and minority communities
Community oriented policing in low socioeconomic communities
Police legitimacy AND compliance
Broken windows policing and its impact on the members of the community
Fairness AND police legitimacy
Perception of fairness in policing
Social control theory
Social learning theory AND police misconduct
One section of my paper could look at the internal culture of the department and how changing the perspectives of the force could suppress racist commentary within the police station and ultimately create an awakening among officers. The supervisor-subordinate relationship is crucial in policing because the attitude and accepted actions of a mentor directly affects the next generation of police officers. Learning from an experienced officer of color can have positive impacts for both the department and the community they serve. Researching social learning theory could produce information to bolster this idea. SAGE and EBSCOhost have been very beneficial in finding quality journal articles. These peer-reviewed journal articles look promising:
Bishopp, S., Piquero, N. L., Piquero, A. R., Worrall, J. L., & Rosenthal, J. (2020). Police stress and race: using general strain theory to examine racial differences in police misconduct. Crime and Delinquency, 66(13-14), 1811–1838.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128720937641
Donner, C., Fridell, L. A., & Jennings, W. G. (2016). The relationship between self-control and police misconduct: A multi-agency study of first-line police supervisors. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(7), 841–862.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854815626751
Van Craen, M., & Skogan, W. G. (2017). Officer support for use of force policy: The role of fair supervision. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 44(6), 843–861.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854817696341
Zavala, E., & Kurtz, D. L. (2016). Applying differential coercion and social support theory to police officers’ misconduct. Deviant Behavior, 37(8), 877–892.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2016.1153365
Another helpful hint is to select Peer-Reviewed Journal on the left-hand column to refine the search. Additionally, I recently discovered the Publication Date range further down in the same column. Simply insert the start date as 2015 and click ‘refine’ in order to update the dates of the sources returned in the search. Additionally, in a previous course here at AMU, a professor pointed out that Law Review Journals can be included under Peer-Reviewed but are not to be used in a research paper as their content can be biased. Some difficulty that I have had in searching is finding Law Review Journals that look promising but are ultimately unfavorable for a research paper. Another difficulty in weeding out potential sources is returning results for other countries and or in alternate languages that look good at first glance but are unhelpful. I understand the recent five-year window for resources, but wish I could go back a bit further because there are valuable peer-reviewed sources which are 6 or 7 years old.
