Quiz: Parenti, Ferguson, Mattu, and Sweeney (8 out of 9)

Readings Covered in this Quiz:

Tuesday, May 25: From “Masterless Men” to “Surplus Populations”

Parenti, Christian. 2000. Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis. London: Verso. (Pp.29-60).

Thursday, May 27: Predictive Policing

Ferguson, Andrew Guthrie. 2019. The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement. New York: New York University Press. Introduction and Excerpts of Ch.1: “Big Data’s Watchful Eye” and “Ch. 3: “Whom We Police. Person Based Predictive Targeting” (PP.1-12, 34-40, 42-44, 47-52).

Angwin Mattu, Julia, Surya Mattu, Lauren Kirchner, and Jeff Larson. 2016. “Machine Bias.” ProPublica. Retrieved March 3, 2021 (https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing).

Sweeney, Annie. 2019. “Can Police Data Predict How ‘Bad Apple’ Officers Influence Their Fellow Cops? New Study Says Yes.” Chicagotribune.Com. Retrieved March 3, 2021 (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-predicting-bad-police-behavior-20190801-xumudeezmjalbbpmqwyvh26tdi-story.html).

Collective Quiz

Instructions: This is a collective quiz. You must decide as a group what the right answer is for each question. This means you must come to a consensus regarding the right answer and cannot select an answer on your own. There is only one question that you must answer individually, question four. Each question is worth .5 points for a total of 2 points.

First, read through all the questions individually. Once everybody has finished, have a conversation about each question to decide which option is the correct answer. Make sure you express your views by explaining why you think a given option is correct or incorrect and ask your peers questions when you have doubts. 

If a strong disagreement emerges regarding the right answer to one of the questions and the conversation comes to a standstill with both sides unconvinced of the other’s argument, you must decide the right answer by simple majority vote.

I’d like to see you make an effort to encourage others to participate throughout the conversation. You can do this by asking them what their view is on a given question or answer.