Disentangling the Relationship Between Race and Attitudes Toward the Police: Police Contact, Perceptions of Safety, and Procedural Justice

Recent incidents involving police shootings of unarmed men of color have increased tensions between communities and police departments across the United States. In response, scholars have intensified efforts to understand the factors that shape attitudes toward the police. The current study examines individual and aggregate factors that influence satisfaction with the police. To this end, we address three research questions: (a) are there significant racial/ethnic differences in satisfaction with police; (b) do these differences persist after accounting for experiences with the police, perceptions of safety, and aggregate measures; and (c) can procedural justice help explain racial variation in attitudes toward the police? Study findings highlight the importance of perceptions of safety in explaining racial/ethnic variation in attitudes toward the police

Advancing the Empirical Research on Lobbying

This essay identifies the empirical facts about lobbying which are generally agreed upon in the literature. It then discusses challenges to empirical research in lobbying and provides examples of empirical methods that can be employed to overcome these challenges—with an emphasis on statistical measurement, identification, and casual inference. The essay then discusses the advantages, disadvantages, and effective use of the main types of data available for research in lobbying. It closes by discussing a number of open questions for researchers in the field and avenues for future work to advance the empirical research in lobbying

Analyzing the Effects of Transit Network Change on Agency Performance and Riders in a Decentralized, Small-to-Mid-sized US Metropolitan Area: A Case Study of Tallahassee, Florida, MTI Report 12-04

On July 11, 2011, StarMetro, the local public transit agency in Tallahassee, Florida, restructured its entire bus network from a downtown-focused radial system to a decentralized, grid-like system that local officials and agency leaders believed would better serve the dispersed local pattern of population and employment. The new, decentralized network is based on radial routes serving the major arterial roads and new crosstown routes linking the outer parts of the city, where population and employment is growing. Local officials and agency staff hoped the change would increase transit’s attractiveness and usefulness to the community. One year after the service restructuring, overall performance results are similar to those experienced in other cities that have implemented major service changes. Overall ridership and productivity are lower than before the service restructuring, due to the short time frame for rider adjustments and longer-than-anticipated headways, but new ridership has appeared in previously un-served or under-served corridors and neighborhoods. The service restructuring resulted in longer walks to bus stops, due to the removal of stops from many neighborhoods and their relocation to major roads, but overall transit travel times are shorter due to more direct routing. No particular neighborhoods or community groups disproportionately benefited from or were harmed by the change. The service restructuring was supported by some segments of the community who viewed the older system as ill-suited to the increasingly decentralized community, while it was opposed by other community stakeholders who worried about the loss of service in some neighborhoods and issues of access and safety, particularly affecting elderly and disabled riders, at new stop locations. StarMetro’s extensive public outreach efforts and ongoing service adjustments have reduced the intensity of the opposition to the service restructuring over time, although some segments of the community continue to voice their concerns about the effects of the change on transit-dependent, disabled, and elderly riders