Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Arrest and Referral Assessment

This report summarizes the research efforts related to the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Arrest and Referral Assessment conducted by the University of Utah’s Utah Criminal Justice Center (UCJC). The report is divided into the following sections:

• Background – This section provides a review of the current state of the literature related to DMC and theories of DMC.
• The Current Project – This project introduction provides a description of the goals and methodology for the current research project.
• Survey Analyses – This section provides a detailed description of the online surveys conducted with law enforcement agency (LEA) personnel. It summarizes officer responses to demographic questions, questions about the nature and prevalence of DMC, and knowledge of factors related to DMC and efforts to reduce DMC. The survey items also included a section where officers were asked to provide possible explanations for DMC trend in their jurisdiction. These responses are summarized in terms of the major theories of DMC described in the aforementioned literature review. The section concludes with a summary of officers’ knowledge of local efforts to address DMC, suggestions to reduce DMC, and perceptions of the adequacy of resources to address DMC in their jurisdiction.
• Interviews – Interviews were conducted to provide additional detail about patterns of DMC over time. This section summarizes officers’ and court personnel’s perceptions of what is being done both at the agency and system level to address DMC. This section elaborates on some of the issues discussed in surveys.
• Discussion – This section provides a summary of the study’s findings and attempts to connect the literature review, survey, and interview results, in order to provide a complete picture of the issues surrounding DMC, including efforts to reduce DMC. A review of best practices related to DMC reduction efforts is provided. Limitations regarding the current study are discussed as are suggestions for future research.
• Appendix – The appendix to the report provides the DMC Relative Risk Index (RRI) trends (in the form of figures) for each jurisdiction, by race/ethnicity, and over time. An introduction to the section explains caveats to the trend analyses, how to interpret the figures, and how to determine whether significant change has occurred over time. Periods of parity and disparity (DMC) are denoted. A text summary of the trends is also provided.

Because of the length of the report, some readers might consider starting with the discussion section. Despite being at the end of the report, this section was designed to serve as an Executive Summary in addition to providing a discussion and conclusions. It summarizes the findings from surveys and interviews and provides some insights into the meaning of the findings both as a guide to future work and as a means of improving on the limitations of the current work. The discussion section does not, however, summarize the information found in the “Background on DMC” section of the report. Readers interested in the literature on DMC are encouraged to read that section in its entirety.

Read the reports associated with this study:

Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Arrest and Referral Assessment

 

Blog Search