The Importance of "Working Rules" in the Determination of Traffic Stop Outcomes (original) (raw)
Related papers
After the Traffic Stops: Officer Characteristics and Enforcement Actions
Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy, 2006
This study examines the relationship between officer characteristics and racially biased policing. In particular, we explore the relationship between the officer's race/ethnicity and the nature and extent of excessive enforcement actions by race. We derive an efficient enforcement action theorem which suggests that if public safety is the sole concern of police agencies, then racially and ethnically biased policing will not be a persistent element of police practice. Alternatively, our political economic model suggests that police apply more severe sanctions against other-group drivers. Our results show that the race and ethnicity of officers have a significant and substantive impact on the intensity of enforcement actions by the Florida Highway Patrol against stopped drivers.
At the intersection: Race, gender, and discretion in police traffic stop outcomes
The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics
Racial disparities in traffic stop outcomes are widespread and well documented. Less well understood is how racial disparities may be amplified or muted in different contexts. Here we focus on one such situational factor: whether the initial traffic stop was related to a traffic safety violation or a (broadly defined) investigatory purpose. This is a salient contextual characteristic as stop type relates to different levels of assumed discretion and purpose. While all traffic stops involve some officer discretion, investigatory stops are more easily used as justifications to conduct a search based on an officer's diffuse suspicion; traffic safety stops are more often just what they seem. Using millions of traffic stops from several states, we show that black male drivers are more likely to be searched and less likely to be found with contraband and that this relationship is amplified where the initial stop purpose is investigatory. One implication of this is that one path to all...
Journal of experimental criminology, 2024
Objectives To assess whether data on traffic stop outcomes causally impacts public approval of discretionary traffic stops as a crime control strategy. Methods We distributed an original online survey experiment randomly assigning respondents (N = 4740) into either the (1) contraband condition, (2) disparity condition, or (3) the control condition. Results In comparison to the control condition, the contraband condition significantly increased respondent support of discretionary traffic stops as a crime-fighting tool. Black respondents assigned the contraband treatment were significantly more likely to support the use of discretionary traffic stops compared to Black respondents assigned the control condition. Conclusions Although scrutiny exists regarding the efficacy of discretionary traffic stops, public opinion may be shifted if they are provided with information on the outcomes of such stops. Police agencies should consider coupling evidence-based strategies with data on the outcomes of crime control strategies, which may also address community desire for more transparency. Minority civilians may support crime control strategies if presented with data on such strategies' effectiveness.
Police Practice and Research, 2019
Despite overall support for law and order, policing in an age of sociopolitical disruption demands community-based strategies. While most well-publicized incidents involve violence, traffic stops remain the most common interaction between police and citizens. This study provides results of a quasi-experiment based on citizens' reactions to traffic stops before and after officer training in a mid-size US town; we also include officer-level data, answering the dearth of both non-urban research and officer effects. Training followed procedural justice (PJ) principles. Findings demonstrate a positive effect of PJ training on citizens' perception of police, though outcome (citation v. warning) matters. Data suggest positive response among officers' attitudes toward PJ, but heterogeneity in behavior. Qualitative data further identified reticence regarding scripts and challenges in dealing with certain populations. Implications suggest that community input, local police culture, and everyday interactions are more important than general perceptions of policing practices.
Police stops, decision-making and practice
Police Research Series Paper, 2000
This is the fourth report produced from a programme of research on stops and searches carried out by the Home Office's Policing and Reducing Crime Unit (Research, Development and Statistics Directorate). This programme was developed following the Report of the Inquiry into the Death of Stephen Lawrence. That report highlighted minority ethnic communities' lack of trust and confidence in the use of stops and searches and recommended that the police should make a record of all stops and all searches of the public.
A Collection of Traffic Stop Information and Biased Enforcement: The Research and Legal Perspective
2000
Many Americans, especially Americans of color, view policing as discriminatory, either by policy and definition or by its day to day application. Thus, comparable to statutes in many other states, the State of Illinois enacted, The Illinois Traffic Stop Statistical Study Act which requires that every State and local law enforcement agency record data relative to traffic stops made within their jurisdiction. The Act further charges the Illinois Department of Transportation to provide statistical summaries (benchmarks) so that statistically significant aberrations in the race of those allegedly involved in traffic stops can be compared and analyzed against the total population traveling through an area to determine whether these discriminatory beliefs are factually founded. This paper discusses the research and legal perspectives involved in designing, defining and distinguishing behavior based on these benchmarks.
Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 2016
Objectives The process-based model of police legitimacy suggests, when police are perceived to make fair decisions and treat people with respect, they will be viewed as legitimate authorities. A randomized controlled trial was used to test the impact of a procedural justice policing intervention, relative to routine police behavior, during traffic stops for excessive speeding in Adana, Turkey. Methods Drivers stopped by traffic officers for speeding violations were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Subjects in the treatment group received the procedural justice policing intervention during traffic stops, while subjects in the control group experienced business-as-usual traffic stops. Treatment officer behavior was guided by a script that helped to ensure that key components of a procedurally-just encounter were delivered. After completion of the traffic stop, drivers were interviewed on the encounter and general perceptions of traffic police. Results The experimental analyses show that the infusion of procedural justice principles into police traffic stops does improve citizens' perceptions of the specific encounter relative to routine police traffic stops. However, the procedural justice treatment did not generate a robust improvement in citizens' general perceptions of traffic officers. Conclusion These results indicate it might be overly optimistic to suggest a single positive encounter can exert a strong influence on durable citizen perceptions of confidence and trust in the police. In addition to ensuring procedurally-just encounters, police executives and police makers should also pay attention to other relevant performance dimensions such as crime control effectiveness, distributive fairness, and lawfulness to change global perceptions of the police.
Document Title: Police Officers' Decision Making and Discretion: Forming Suspicion and Making a Stop
There are two units of analysis in this study, each based on a stage in the officer's decision-making process: (1) the officer becoming suspicious of an individual, and (2) the officer making a stop based on the suspicion. First, we examine the decision to form a suspicion in relation to the characteristics of the areas patrolled, the persons encountered, the days and times suspicion was formed, and finally, the characteristics of officers. We next analyze the officer's decision to stop a citizen in relation to our independent variables. Lastly, we discuss factors associated with the various alternative outcomes of a stop (e.g. use of force, searches, tickets, and arrests). Findings Officers formed suspicion when they observed something unusual, became curious or otherwise distrustful of an individual. During 132 tours where officers were accompanied by observers, officers formed suspicion 174 times. On average, an officer would form suspicion once (X = 1.32; S.D. = 1.27) during a tour of duty (or shift). Officers did not form suspicion on 60 of these tours,. However, on one tour, an officer formed seven suspicions. In the majority of cases, individuals were driving vehicles, opposed to being on foot, at the time suspicion was formed or stops were made (70% and 73.8%, respectively). The majority of persons who aroused the suspicion of officers, or who were stopped by police, were male (74%) minority group members (71%) who averaged thirty-two years of age. However, Blacks constituted a slightly higher percentage of suspicions (71.0%) than stops (68.9%), while whites had an inverse pattern (they constituted 29.0 % of the suspicions and 31.1 % of the stops. Bases for Suspicion When an officer was curious about a citizen or became suspicious, observers asked the officer to provide them with the reason(s) for this concern. The reasons provided by observers were coded according
Comparing Police and Public Perceptions of a Routine Traffic Encounter
Police Quarterly, 2015
Police perceptions of procedural justice are less well understood than citizen perceptions. Our paper compares the views of police officers and citizens of a routine Australian policing encounter, the Random Breath Test. We examine perceptions of two versions of their encounter: a business as usual and a more explicitly procedurally just interaction. Our results indicate that the procedurally just version affected the views of police officers, but not drivers, regarding the reasons for conducting Random Breath Tests. It also appears that police officers believe that the encounter has a greater impact on drivers’ views than the drivers report themselves. This study has important implications for policing as it demonstrates that incorporating procedural justice within police-citizen interactions affects police officers as well as the citizens. It also highlights the importance of using external (e.g., larger community) measures, in addition to internal measures (e.g., within police or...
Policing, Danger Narratives, and Routine Traffic Stops
Michigan Law Review, 2019
This Article presents findings from the largest and most comprehensive study to date on violence against the police during traffic stops. Every year, police officers conduct tens of millions of traffic stops. Many of these stops are entirely unremarkable—so much so that they may be fairly described as routine. Nonetheless, the narrative that routine traffic stops are fraught with grave and unpredictable danger to the police permeates police training and animates Fourth Amendment doctrine. This Article challenges this dominant danger narrative and its centrality within key institutions that regulate the police. The presented study is the first to offer an estimate for the danger rates of routine traffic stops to law enforcement officers. I reviewed a comprehensive dataset of thousands of traffic stops that resulted in violence against officers across more than 200 law enforcement agencies in Florida over a 10-year period. The findings reveal that violence against officers was rare an...