University study on policing leads to questions about how the community is researched
Activist Al Flowers questioned why the University of Minnesota’s survey of Northside attitudes on policing did not involve the work of local groups. Photo by David Pierini
By Abdi Mohamed Staff Reporter
By Abdi Mohamed Staff Reporter The worlds of academia and community activism came to a head on Tuesday night Dec. 10 during a forum on policing in North Minneapolis. Researchers from the University of Minnesota presented their findings of a two-year long study that surveyed residents of the Northside about their experiences with police. The forum was aimed at gaining insight from the community through feedback, which instead became the epicenter for a conversation around the feelings of exclusion and exploitation members of the Northside feel when it comes to academic research.
The research project was spearheaded by Michelle Phelps, Ph.D, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. One of her students, Amber Powell, MA, helped lead the presentation of their findings. They shared their methodology which involved interviewing 120 Northside residents and 25 community activists and political figures, aiming to gauge the community’s attitudes about police conduct in North Minneapolis.
Phelps said North Minneapolis was chosen for the study due to its high rate of interaction between police and residents. Researchers found that the lack of accountability was an issue for many participants of the survey when it came to police conduct. They also found members of the community faced “dual frustration,” a term that describes the dilemma in which an individual wants assistance from police for protection but is wary of how law enforcement might engage them. Attendees who spoke up at the forum found the findings too familiar. “We don’t need more surveys,” said Nate Streeter, a business owner and Folwell neighborhood resident. “I feel like the university comes to my house all the time. What we desperately need is feedback loops.”
Chris Robertson is a graduate student who helped with the research. As a black man living on the Northside, Robertson felt as though his experience helped in his assessment of the data. He emphasized the importance of having a shared identity with the community for accurate findings. “It’s good to know that someone is accurately portraying the North Minneapolis experience in academic literature,” Robertson said.
Although the research team might have gone to some lengths to close their blind spots, Northside residents like Cynthia Jackson feel that their process was inherently exploitative of the community.
“I don’t want to say I hate the police, but I hate the way we are policed,” said Jackson, who is a graduate student of advocacy and political leadership at Metropolitan State University. Having lived in the Northside for over 20 years, Jackson stated that she’s never had one positive interaction with a police officer.
Jackson along with some others at the event felt as though it was a waste of time and exploitative with researchers receiving grant dollars for work that doesn’t present new information. “We’re not laboratory specimens to be put under a microscope. To be studied and researched and still be in the petri dish,” Jackson said.
One issue a few community members expressed with the study is the lack of ethnic nuance between black respondents by simply labeling them black or African American. The cultural difference between African immigrants and African descendants of slaves (ADOS) as some refer to themselves, is a significant one. It’s a distinction some felt necessary to include in the study due to the historical context between police and the African American community. Some, like community activist Al Flowers, said they wished Northsiders had been given a leadership role on the project from the onset. “You should be working with us. Don’t bring us in on the back end,” he said.
Roughly $90K in grant money funded this study, most of which went to research students in the form of stipends for their work, according to Phelps. Participants of the survey who were interviewed were reportedly given a $30 gift card. Some event attendees, like Flowers, said they would have liked to see more of the money go to Northsiders living with these issues. Much of the criticism that came from community centered on the research team being community outsiders. Powell was raised in Milwaukee, and is a black woman with five black brothers. All of the graduate students involved in the project identified as people of color. Powell said that having similar identities to Northsiders enhanced their work but said she is aware that her status with the university still marked her as an outsider to the community. “We tried to be honest and transparent about that,” she said.
Phelps and her students hope to publish the finalized piece of their research next year after digesting the feedback they received from attendees of their forum.