10 Reflections and Discussion Questions

Now that we’ve created our maps, it’s worthwhile to reflect on the process and its outcomes. Consider the following:

• How might you change the maps we made? For example, would you change the color schemes, number of intervals, title, or any other features of their appearance? If so, why? See if you can change the code we developed to implement those changes.
• Reflect on the process of “cleaning” and reorganizing the original Stanford Policing Project dataset (this process is summarized in Section 9.1). Why were these steps necessary in order to generate our maps? What information was lost in the course of making these data transformations? What research questions might the original dataset be able to answer, that the “cleaned” dataset that results from these transformations could not answer?
• What do you think are the possible shortcomings of the “bias_index” variable we created? Can you think of an alternative measure of racial bias in traffic stops that addresses these shortcomings? Could you create it with the data we already have? If not, what data would you need to collect?
• What spatial patterns (if any) do you notice in how the “bias_index” is distributed across counties? Are there regions of the state where several counties with high values for the bias index are clustered? What might explain these patterns?
• What implications might these maps have for public policy?