Contemporary Cultural Diversity

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OK. I took my time with this one. I have slides written out for all topics. I have many references. Remember, put these in your own words when you paste them onto your PowerPoint program. These are my ideas, and you might not agree with them all.

I assume you mean that there should be 10 to 15 slides for both issues combined, not 15 for each. I'll take each in turn. Remember, all you have to do is cut and paste these onto the powerpoint program. But please, always put things in your own words, especially in areas that might seem to "scholarly" for an undergraduate.

The criminal justice system's response to the public's perception of ethnic and gender bias.

Slide 1: Unless law enforcement responds to public beliefs on racial bias, the chances of confrontation between police and local citizens increases. It is in their interests to maintain good relations with the community.

The literature on this field is mixed. Some papers hold that race is the prime determinant of both criminal behavior and negative perceptions of the police. Others state that it is the nature of one's neighborhood that matters most, and is more significant than race. Others think that one's prior experience with the police also affects perception profoundly.

Slide 2: Many whites, according to Weitzer and Tuch (2005) are very pro-police, and, less plausibly, claim about half of white America sees blacks as more "violence prone" than other races. In America, that is certainly the case, yet, the literature too is mixed both on race as a cause for crime and white perceptions of non-white crime.

Slide 3: Weitzer and Tuch (2005) make the claim that perceptions of police bias come from two sources: race and one's previous dealings with the police. The problem of method here is these two variables overlap too much. Since non-white areas, especially in the inner city, are more crime ridden than white or Asian areas, it would make sense that there would be more interaction with the police and that the police would be more "on guard" in those areas than in rural America.

Slide 4: One response to this perception has been to aggressively recruit black and Hispanic officers. In Los Angeles, for example, the LAPD went from being about 75% white in 1990 to about a third today. This means that inner city LAPD are mostly non-white. Given that fact, and the fact that this is the case in most major American cities, the entire concept of bias seems out of place.

Slide 5: The LAPD, to use them as an example again, worked with the city to implement two affirmative action programs. The first in 1980 and the second in 1992-1993. The drive was to make the city force more representative of the community. This approach can only improve police work in general. Yet, to say that it is better to have black officers patrolling black areas might make lots of sense, but it looks a little like segregation. On the other hand, if it works, and trust is build easier with members of one's own race, then labels like "segregationist" should be left out (Newton, 2006).

Slide 6: The city ...