I’ve just submitted the draft of my piece about the Jena 6 that is a substantial extension and revision of the blog post I wrote a couple of years ago. It will need a 20% cut before publication and responses of editors and reviewers may lead me to rethink my
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Coverage of Black Anti-Police Protests
I’ve just posted a new working paper to SocArXiv. Current title is “Unarmed Violence, Police Perspectives, Community Struggle: Black- and White-centric news accounts of Black Protests about Policing in the U.S. 1994-2010” although the title will probably evolve as we decide how to shape the discussion. We compare mainstream White-centric
Read moreCincinnati 2001: Police Killing of Timothy Thomas and Insurrection
General Background The events in Cincinnati were often referred to as the largest riot or rebellion since 1992 in Los Angeles and/or the largest riot or rebellion in Cincinnati since the 1960s. On Saturday April 7 2001, 19 year old Timothy Thomas was shot and killed while running away from
Read moreBiggest Black Movement Criminal-Legal News Stories 1994-2010
Our research project is using articles from mainstream newswires (as archived in the Linguistic Data Consortium’s Annotated English Gigaword) and Black newspapers to identify Black protest events in the 1990s and 2000s. This is an under-studied period in Black movement history. In this article we summarize the most newsworthy episodes
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Black Protests in the US, 1994-2010
Although many discussions imply nothing happened between the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter, we find that Black protests in the 1990s and 2000s seem continuous with what came later.
Read moreRecent Anti-Police Brutality Protests Since George Floyd’s Death are Far Larger than Previous Black Lives Matter Protest Waves
Much excellent work has been written about the need for systemic reform of policing in the US, the discrimination and inequalities faced by Black Americans, and the brave struggles of anti-racist protesters amidst the ongoing police repression and the unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic. As social movements go, the ongoing mobilizations
Read moreThe Struggle for Criminal Justice Reform
This is a guest post by Michelle Phelps, Joshua Page, and Philip Goodman. The history of criminal justice in the U.S. is often described as a pendulum, swinging back and forth between strict punishment and lenient rehabilitation. Before the election of President Donald J. Trump, many argued the pendulum was
Read moreCreating Protest Event Databases: A New Protocol
In constructing and analyzing new data on Black protests, I’ve come to realize the importance of improving standard protocols for collecting protest event data. Although protest event data has one record per event, these events are recorded in news accounts that talk about multiple events in one article and the
Read moreDefining Protest and Protest Events
Does protest help a group’s cause? Do cities with strong Black protest movements improve their policing practices in Black communities? Do police respond more repressively in places with strong Black movements? Does mass incarceration reduce the capacity for Black protest? To answer these questions, we need to know how to
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