Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: We are engaged in a broad study of perceptions of racism in the criminal justice system. The present paper reports on one part of that project: attitudes toward ?racial profiling? of Blacks and ?ethnic profiling? of Arabs following the September 11th terrorist attack. We report on a series of experiments that examined college student opinions toward these two law enforcement practices, including whether or not they are perceived as racist. We examine individual predispositions that might be related to these attitudes, and conduct an experimental manipulation designed to see whether participants see parallels between racial profiling and ethnic profiling.

Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: Racial profiling is the use of race, ethnicity, or national origin by police to make judgments of criminal suspicion. The fairness and efficacy of this practice has been questioned by many (e.g., Glaser, 2006). This study is the first to experimentally investigate the effects of racial profiling on the behavior of others. Sixty-two white participants were randomly assigned to witness either black or white confederates being profiled for cheating during a complex cognitive task, or witnessed no profiling. Results showed that participants cheated significantly more under the black profiling condition than in either the white profiling or no-profiling control group.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Few topics are more sensitive to police and minority ethnic groups than racial profiling. Because this is a relatively new area of inquiry,r esearchers lack a comprehensive methodology for conducting inquiries into allegations of racial profiling. To date, most studies of profiling focus on alleged disparities between policing activities and aggregate population statistics. However, as a vast majority of this research cannot account for possible differences in group behaviour, it is
impossible to conclude definitively that officers actually target minorities. By contrast, this study examines accusations of racial and demographic profiling by comparing arrest statistics between two overlapping police forces patrolling the same
stretch of highway, during the same period of time. We theorise that the Louisiana State Police Criminal Patrol Unit (LSP-CPU) and certain deputies of the St Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office (SMSO) conducted focused traffic stops on suspect
populations in an effort to interdict drug trafficking along Interstate 10. Indeed, an examination of the arrest statistics between the CPU/ SMSO and our baseline (Louisiana State Police Traffic Patrol) reveals dramatic discrepancies
which are logically consistent with racial and demographic profiling on the part of the CPU/ SMSO. Beyond its specific findings, the study provides a more reliable method by which researchers can assess accusations of profiling by
other law enforcement agencies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explores the impact of the gender and race of the respondent on prejudgment in high-profile criminal cases. We are also able to explore attitudes toward the death penalty, which was an issue in many of the cases. While overall we find results similar to published national data—that is, women and blacks are less likely to judge a defendant guilty and less likely to select death as the appropriate penalty—when the race of the defendant or the characteristics of the crime are considered these results are often reversed. We develop a salience model to explain the differences.

Analysis is based on an original data base—about 20,000 respondents from over 50 high-profile criminal cases, in both state and federal court, mostly in California, but with a number of cases from around the country—which allows for comparisons across several counties at one point in time, longitudinal analysis from a variety of studies in a single county, to inter-county and inter-state comparisons over a seven-year period. A combinatorial analysis is appropriate since the survey instrument is almost identical in all studies. Even the specific information relating to the case at hand is asked in the same format in each study. The sample size for each study in each county is also about the same.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study seeks to highlight the commonalities as well as the distinct interests, resources, and strategies of foundations in the area of health policy. It reviews and compares the activities of twelve foundations, including a select number of national foundations, a new breed of state health foundations, and some local foundations that consciously participate in health policy matters. Since the field of health policy is extraordinarily broad, this paper focuses its analysis on foundation activities aimed at expanding or protecting health insurance coverage. The issue is serious, persistent, and provides valuable insight into the connections between philanthropy and public policy.

A key problem facing the policy community, including foundations concerned with gaps in insurance coverage, is that many individuals do not take coverage offered to them in private or public programs. Thus, foundations are faced with two basic challenges: First, they must support strategies to improve take-up rates for existing programs. Second, they must also help develop initiatives to provide insurance coverage for individuals who do not currently qualify for employer-sponsored or public programs.

Most foundations invest in a very broad set of activities to achieve their policy goals. These diverse activities fit into three basic strategies for shaping public policy:

1) Educate the public and members of the policy community
2) Invest in the development and demonstration of new institutions and policy options
3) Support capacity-building and advocacy efforts

Building on twelve individual profiles of foundation activities, the study presents an overview of these foundations’ choice of issues, audiences and partners, jurisdictions, and stages of involvement in the policy process. It identifies some clear patterns in the allocation of resources and examines what those patterns suggest about foundation preferences and capabilities for improving health insurance coverage.

Due to the nature of health care financing and delivery in this country, all of the foundations have devoted resources to improving private insurance coverage as well as protecting and expanding public sources of coverage. All of the foundations, however, accept the premise that governmental action is critical to solving the problems of more than 40 million uninsured Americans and they view public policy as a way to leverage the relatively limited resources they can devote to this issue. In the end, most foundations find themselves funding a combination of activities—public and private, and at different levels of the system. Some grants support policy or program development aimed at long term systemic change, while other grants support the delivery of discrete, short term services. While this study focuses on foundation efforts to change public policy, it is important to recognize that support for direct services may at times be a logical complement and not a competitor to systemic solutions.

The study also draws several lessons from these foundations’ efforts:

Lesson 1
Foundations are not strictly leaders or followers on the issue of health insurance coverage.

Lesson 2
While foundations can adopt different strategies in the public policy arena, those strategies become less differentiated for foundations with greater resources and for foundations focused on state or local initiatives.

Lesson 3
It is necessary but not sufficient for foundations to develop expertise in health policy.

Lesson 4
Foundations must clarify whether they can best meet their goals as investors or as entrepreneurs in the policy process.

Lesson 5
The test of foundations’ capacity to solve critical social problems lies in their collective contributions, not their individual roles in the policy process.

The limited progress toward universal coverage can hardly be attributed to foundation boards and staff wary of political controversy. As a number of foundation leaders point out, a few billion dollars of philanthropy does not go far in a $1.5 trillion health care system. Nonetheless, the potential impact of foundations might be more highly leveraged through stronger, more selective advocacy and also through stronger collaboration among foundations.

The process of policy innovation requires the collaboration of different types of leaders—inventors of policy ideas, investors, promoters, and managers. But it also typically requires “policy entrepreneurs” who take the lead in that collaboration—entrepreneurs recombine intellectual, political, and organizational resources into new products and courses of action for government. The most distinguishing trait of policy entrepreneurs is their singular focus on a specific idea for new governmental procedures, organizations, or programs, and the significant professional and often financial stakes they place in those ideas. Policy entrepreneurs can and often do come from outside of government, even though their success depends on recruiting government insiders who have key positions and the political capital to move their proposals forward.

Foundations are clearly capable of becoming entrepreneurs in the policy process. Alternatively, foundations may choose the role of investor, providing financial support, technical assistance, access to decision makers, and prestige to one or more groups promoting their own ideas for improving public policy and public health.

There is a fundamental difference in these two roles and important implications for the allocation of foundation resources. In general, the national foundations in this study have consciously avoided endorsing particular solutions to the problems of the uninsured. In contrast, nearly all of the state and local foundations have selected—indeed, sometimes created—particular policies or administrative arrangements that they want government to adopt. Due to their more limited resources, local foundations appear to focus their health policy efforts on one principal initiative at a time.

There are many possible reasons why foundations would shy away from the role of policy entrepreneur and prefer that of investor. The choice involves practical issues of the amount of resources available to address an issue and the proximity of the foundation to key actors in the policy community. The choice also depends on whether the foundation’s board and staff are willing to commit themselves to a specific initiative for a lengthy period of time.

Nonetheless, at whatever scale and in whatever manner foundations pursue an expansion of health insurance, they must confront the question of whether they might increase their effectiveness by not only helping develop products for policy makers but engage in more selective, forceful advocacy of their preferred products. The evidence from this study suggests that focused advocacy efforts might well be put to greater use in foundation efforts to protect and expand health insurance across the nation.

If there is a lesson that smaller, more local foundations can teach larger foundations, it is the importance of establishing and sustaining a specific policy design and marshalling resources to support it through close public-private partnerships. One approach is to pool resources into a single, foundation-sponsored initiative. Another approach is to establish informal collaboration in support of a government or community-based initiative.

Collaboration is primarily a means to an end, not an end in itself. There are two key issues regarding collaboration among funders and their operational partners in any initiative. First, are resources sufficient to meet the agreed-upon goals of the participants? Second, is the combination of activities comprehensive, incorporating each of the three strategies needed to maximize the likelihood of reshaping public policy?

Even in a best-case scenario of collaboration, foundations can rapidly approach boundaries to further progress on the issue of health insurance coverage. Without a single, well-endowed source of responsibility or success in persuading governmental officials to adopt the program, even the most skilled policy entrepreneurs within the world of philanthropy cannot sustain expansions of coverage—even modest ones—because of their extraordinary financial costs. At all levels of the political system, the financial and political costs require collaboration among foundations. Significant commitment and communication will be required, however, to work out the most effective configuration of roles and resources for protecting and expanding health insurance coverage across the nation.