An analysis of police traffic stops and searches in Kentucky: a mixed methods approach offering heuristic and practical implications (original) (raw)
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Conflict theory and racial profiling: An empirical analysis of police traffic stop data
Journal of Criminal Justice, 2003
Using data collected by the Richmond, Virginia Police Department, this article applies conflict theory to police traffic stop practices. In particular, it explores whether police traffic stop, search, and arrest practices differ according to racial or socioeconomic factors among neighborhoods. Three principal findings emanate from this research. First, the total number of stops by Richmond police was determined solely by the crime rate of the neighborhood. Second, the percentage of stops that resulted in a search was determined by the percentage of Black population. Third, when examining the percentage of stops that ended in an arrest/summons, the analyses suggest that both the percentage of Black population and the area crime rate served to decrease the percentage of police stops that ended in an arrest/summons. Implications for conflict theory and police decision-making are addressed. D
Racial profiling and searches: Did the politics of racial profiling change police behavior?
Criminology & Public Policy, 2009
Scholarly research has documented repeatedly that minority citizens are disproportionately stopped, searched, and arrested relative to their baseline populations. In recent years, policymakers have brought increased attention to this issue as law-enforcement agencies across the United States have faced allegations of racial profiling. In the 1990s, the politics generated by accounts of racially biased policing placed heightened pressure on law-enforcement agencies. However, to date, few studies have explored whether the increased social and political scrutiny placed on police organizations influenced or changed their general pattern of enforcement among black and white citizens. Using data in the search and citation file from the North Carolina Highway Traffic Study, this research specifically examined whether the politics generated by the media coverage of racial profiling and racial profiling legislation in North Carolina influenced the search practices of officers of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol's drug interdiction team. The findings suggest that media accounts and the passage of new legislation were particularly powerful influences, which thereby reduced racial disparity in searches. Declines in the use of consent searches and an increased probability of finding contraband also were influenced by the politics of racial profiling. 343 \\server05\productn\C\CPP\8-2\CPP204.txt unknown Seq: 2 5-JUN-09 8:30
Investigating Racial Profiling by the Miami-Dade Police Department: A Multimethod Approach
Criminology & Public Policy, 2007
The perception and existence of biased policing or racial profiling is one of the most difficult issues facing contemporary American society. Citizens from minority communities have focused their concerns on the improper use of race by law enforcement officers. The current research uses a complex methodological approach to investigate claims that the Miami-Dade, Florida Police Department uses race improperly for the purposes of making traffic stops and conducting post-stop activities. The results are mixed in that the officer's aggregate actions do not show a pattern of discriminatory actions toward minority citizens when making a traffic stop, but results of post-stop activities do show some disparate treatment of minorities. Policy Implications Five specific policy recommendations are made to reduce the perception or reality of racial profiling by the police. First, police departments must have clear policies and directives explaining the proper use of race in decision making. Second, officers must be trained and educated in the overall impact of using race as a factor in deciding how to respond to a citizen. Third, the department must maintain a data-collection and analytic system to monitor the activities of their officers as it pertains to the race of the citizen. The fourth police recommendation involves the use of record checks in the field that can set in motion a process that results in the detention and arrest of citizens. Fifth, the completion of a record of interrogation for later intelligence has implications for the citizen. The use of this intelligence tool must depend on suspicion rather than on the race of the citizen.
International Journal of Police Science & Management
An important source of racial disparity in policing is traffic enforcement. The level of discretion afforded to officers for traffic enforcement is generally greater than it is for other policing decisions. One way to control misuse of discretion is through minority representation, which is the extent that the racial composition of the police agency matches that of the local community. Using data from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and the 2013 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), this study examines how social context and police organizational variables (e.g., minority representation) relate to enforcement outcomes. We find that organizational measures, including minority representation, relate to written citations and consent search requests. Moreover, non-white population size conditions the effect of minority representation on traffic stops and citations. These results highlight the importance of accounting for both social context a...
Searching for Efficient Enforcement: Officer Characteristics and Racially Biased Policing
Review of Law & Economics, 2007
This study empirically investigates whether racial and ethnic differences in police searches of stopped drivers reflect efficient enforcement or biased policing. Null hypotheses consistent with efficient enforcement are derived from alternative assumptions regarding police objectives: 1) police seek to maximize public safety, and 2) police seek to maximize the hit rate. We use both an outcomes-based non-parametric analysis and a standard benchmarking parametric approach (regression analysis). Both approaches yield the same results: law enforcement officers display both personal and police cultural bias in their propensity to search African American and Latino drivers. African American and Latino status tends to lower the guilt signal required for police suspicion. Further, white officers police differently than their African American and Latino colleagues. White officers are 73 percent of the sworn police force, conduct 88 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 20 percent. Latino officers are 11 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 8 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 24 percent. African American officers are 15 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 4 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 26 percent. The preferential treatment of white drivers by police is attenuated with increases in the fraction of racial and ethnic minority residents in the county where the stop occurred.
A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States
Nature Human Behaviour, 2020
We assessed racial disparities in policing in the United States by compiling and analysing a dataset detailing nearly 100 million traffic stops conducted across the country. We found that black drivers were less likely to be stopped after sunset, when a 'veil of darkness' masks one's race, suggesting bias in stop decisions. Furthermore, by examining the rate at which stopped drivers were searched and the likelihood that searches turned up contraband, we found evidence that the bar for searching black and Hispanic drivers was lower than that for searching white drivers. Finally, we found that legalization of recreational marijuana reduced the number of searches of white, black and Hispanic drivers-but the bar for searching black and Hispanic drivers was still lower than that for white drivers post-legalization. Our results indicate that police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias and point to the value of policy interventions to mitigate these disparities.
This dissertation explores a possible use for the repeat phenomenon in examining racial disparities in police motor vehicle stops. Racial profiling, in terms of motor vehicle stops, is one of the more controversial issues in policing today and, subsequently, numerous studies and reports have been issued regarding the distribution of motor vehicle stops across the races. Beyond identifying the existence of racial disparities in motor vehicle stops, explaining why those disparities exist and how they should be addressed are relatively new topics in this growing body of research.
2015
This study focuses on the interactions among a police officer's racial identity, the racial identity of stopped drivers, and the organizational identity of policing. Utilizing traffic stop data collected by the Florida Highway Patrol during 2000-2009, this study finds that representation of African American and Hispanic troopers improves outcomes for all groups of drivers, by increasing efficiency in searches. All troopers, regardless of race, engage in fewer searches when they are assigned to troops with a higher fraction of racial minority officers. Importantly, we show that this decrease in search activity simultaneously yields higher hit rates, thereby increasing efficiency. Finally, the data reveal that the greatest change in search behavior is by majority officers within troops with higher percentages of minority officers. This suggests that officers modify their behavior to align with the search activities of the organizational identity of the troop they serve in. An increase in efficiency not only reduces unnecessary and often discriminatory searches faced by minority drivers, but it also increases public safety.
Journal of Communication, 2008
Although the study of police-civilian relations has recently entered the intergroup communication arena, there are no studies of actual interactions between these social categories. In part to rectify that stark omission and guided by communication accommodation theory, 313 randomly sampled video recordings from police cars on traffic stops in Cincinnati, Ohio were content analyzed. The study revealed 3 key differences as a function of the officers' and drivers' races: (a) Black drivers were more likely to experience extensive policing during the stop; (b) the communication quality of White drivers was, on average, more positive than that of the Black drivers; and (c) officers' communication behavior was more positive when the officer and driver were of the same race. These findings are consistent with public opinion data and their implications for theory are discussed.
Criminal Justice Policy Review, 2018
Research has shown that Black and Hispanic drivers are subject to disproportionate stop and post-stop outcomes compared with White drivers. Yet scholars' understanding of how and why such disparities persist remains underdeveloped. To address this shortcoming, this article applies a sequential approach to the analysis of traffic stop data generated by San Diego Police Department officers in 2014 and 2015. Results show that despite being subject to higher rates of discretionary and nondiscretionary searches, Black drivers were less likely to be found with contraband than matched Whites and were more than twice as likely to be subjected to a field interview where no citation is issued or arrest made. Black drivers were also more likely to face any type of search, as well as high-discretion consent searches, that end in neither citation nor arrest. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and a series of recommendations.