Research Projects
Which constituents matter most to state legislators taking policy action on policing in the post-Ferguson era? Those advocating for greater police accountability, or those seeking to expand police autonomy?
Alongside co-PIs Maneesh Arora and Archie Delshad, I have led efforts to create two original and comprehensive datasets that will allow us to assess what regional, demographic, partisan and institutional influences determine how state legislatures have taken up political action in the racially contested domain of policing in the post-Ferguson era.
The first is the State Legislative Action on Policing (SLAP) database, a detailed archive of the content and sponsors of every policing-related bill proposed or passed by each state legislature between 2013 and 2016.
The second is the Media Perspectives on Policing (MPOP) database. The MPOP contains coding of the content of every article from the largest 25 newspapers in circulation that addresses either policing or policing related protests during the same time period.
Together, these databases will allow us to determine the sets of constituent groups and political actors to which state legislators are most and least responsive. We will answer the questions:
Does proximity to a high-profile policing controversy affect a state’s legislative output on policing?
Are Black legislators more likely to be the sponsors of bills increasing accountability for police?
What is the legislative output on policing from states under scrutiny from the Department of Justice?
Our first paper from this project is:
Framing Police and Protesters: Assessing Volume and Framing of News Coverage Post-Ferguson, and Corresponding Impacts on Legislative Activity (Published in Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2019: 7:1, 151-164, DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2018.1518782)