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Journal Article 1: Jay, M., & Conklin, P. (2017). Detroit and the political origins of ‘broken windows’ policing. Race & Class, 59(2), 26–48.

Abstract: The authors argue that ‘broken windows’ policing strategies, promoted officially as a means of reducing crime, though criticized by liberals for the potentially discriminatory impact on non-whites, should rather be viewed as an integral component of the state’s attempts to coercively manage the contradictions of capitalism. Taking issue with Wacquant, they stress the need to situate policing strategies in terms of the resistances waged by racialized surplus populations. Examining Detroit, they provide a history, spanning the years between the Great Depression and the aftermath of the Great Rebellion in 1967, which was, at the time, the largest civil uprising in US history, to contextualize the introduction of stop-and-frisk in the mid-1960s. This policy, they argue, was predominantly part of an attempt to contain and repress the political threat emerging from the active and reserve sections of the black working class. They go on to analyze the ‘broken windows’ strategies in contemporary Detroit so as to situate them in relationship to other processes in the now bankrupt Motor City, such as home foreclosures, water shutoffs, and investment and gentrification in the greater downtown area.

Journal Article 2: Godfredson, J. W., Ogloff, J. R. P., Thomas, S. D. M., & Luebbers, S. (2010). Police discretion and encounters with people experiencing mental illness: The significant factors. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 37(12), 1392–1405.

Abstract: Police discretion as it applies to encounters with people experiencing mental illness has far-reaching implications. In this study, some of the factors that are related to police officers’ decisions following encounters with people experiencing mental illness were explored. Officers in Australia were presented with one of three videos depicting a police encounter with an individual who was either mentally ill, not mentally ill, or with an ambiguous mental state. Participants were asked how they would “likely” and “ideally” resolve the encounter. Discriminant function analysis revealed that officers’ responses were related to (a) the severity of symptoms presented and (b) the officers’ attitudes toward people experiencing mental illness, as measured by an attitudes questionnaire. There was a discrepancy between participants’ likely and ideal outcomes to the scenarios, which supported the well-known fact that police officers face considerable obstacles when attempting to resolve encounters with people experiencing mental illness.