Cincinnati Police Department Traffic Stops: Applying RAND's Framework to Analyze Racial Disparities

10.7249/mg914 ◽  
2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Ridgeway
Keyword(s):  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Traffic Stops

scholarly journals Racial demographics explain the link between racial disparities in traffic stops and county-level racial attitudes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierce D. Ekstrom ◽  
Joel Michel Le Forestier ◽  
Calvin K. Lai
Keyword(s):  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
County Level ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Arrest Rates ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Racial Demographics

Disparities in the treatment of Black and White Americans in police stops are pernicious and widespread. We examine racial disparities in police traffic stops by leveraging data on traffic stops from hundreds of U.S. counties from the Stanford Open Policing Project and corresponding county-level data on implicit and explicit racial attitudes from the Project Implicit research website. We find that Black-White traffic stop disparities are associated with county-level implicit and explicit racial attitudes and that this association is attributable to racial demographics: counties with a higher proportion of White residents had larger racial disparities in police traffic stops. We also examined racial disparities in several post-stop outcomes (e.g., arrest rates) and found that they were not systematically related to racial attitudes, despite evidence of disparities. These findings indicate that racial disparities in counties’ traffic stops are reliably linked to counties’ racial attitudes and demographic compositions.

Complex Colorblindness in Police Processes and Practices

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Welsh ◽  
Joshua Chanin ◽  
Stuart Henry
Keyword(s):  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Enforcement Policy ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Racial disparities in police-community encounters are well documented, with people of color experiencing higher levels of police scrutiny. Far less is known about how police officers perceive the racial dynamics at play in their work. As part of a 2016 study of traffic stops in San Diego, we conducted in-depth interviews with 52 city police officers. Despite evidence of racial disparities in SDPD practices related to post-stop outcomes, officers denied, minimized, or even condemned racial profiling during traffic stops; officers described operating under a neutral policy of “colorblindness.” Our analysis identifies cognitive and discursive mechanisms which explain this complex and contradictory picture. We find that officers’ accounts excuse, justify, or otherwise negate the role of race in routine police work, yet officers’ thoughts and actions are based on racialized and, at times, dehumanizing narratives about people and communities of color. These morally neutral accounts form a pattern of micro-racialized discourse, constituting a layering of racialized processes and practices that cumulatively produce racially disparate outcomes. We argue that rejection of explicit racism alone is insufficient to address the progressive micro-racial aggression that emerges at key points during police-community encounters. We discuss the implications for law enforcement policy and practice.

Race, Place, and Context: The Persistence of Race Effects in Traffic Stop Outcomes in the Face of Situational, Demographic, and Political Controls

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-508
Author(s):  
Kelsey Shoub ◽  
Derek A. Epp ◽  
Frank R. Baumgartner ◽  
Leah Christiani ◽  
Kevin Roach
Keyword(s):  
Police Department ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Police Chief ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Race Effects ◽  
The Face ◽  
Municipal Police ◽  
Municipal Police Departments ◽  
Unique Dataset

AbstractEvidence that racial minorities are targeted for searches during police traffic stops is widespread, but observed differences in outcomes following a traffic stop between white drivers and people of color could potentially be due to factors correlated with driver race. Using a unique dataset recording over 5 million traffic stops from 90 municipal police departments, we control for and evaluate alternative explanations for why a driver may be searched. These include: (1) the context of the stop itself, (2) the characteristics of the police department including the race of the police chief, and (3) demographic and racial composition of the municipality within which the stop occurs. We find that the driver's race remains a robust predictor: black male drivers are consistently subjected to more intensive police scrutiny than white drivers. Additionally, we find that all drivers are less likely to be subject to highly discretionary searches if the police chief is black. Together, these findings indicate that race matters in multiple and varied ways for policing outcomes.

“Does daylight matter”? An examination of racial bias in traffic stops by police

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 675-688
Author(s):  
Anthony G. Vito ◽  
Vanessa Woodward Griffin ◽  
Gennaro F. Vito ◽  
George E. Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
The Veil ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to draw a better understanding of the potential impact of daylight in officer decision making. In order to this, the authors test the veil of darkness hypothesis, which theorizes that racial bias in traffic stops can be tested by controlling for the impact of daylight, while operating under the assumption that driver patterns remain constant across race.Design/methodology/approachPublicly available traffic-stop records from the Louisville Metro Police Department for January 2010–2019. The analysis includes both propensity score matching to examine the impact of daylight in similarly situated stops and coefficients testing to analyze how VOD may vary in citation-specific models.FindingsThe results show that using PSM following the VOD hypothesis does show evidence of racial bias, with Black drivers more likely to be stopped. Moreover, the effects of daylight significantly varied across citation-specific models.Research limitations/implicationsThe data are self-reported from the officer and do not contain information on the vehicle make or model.Practical implicationsThis paper shows that utilizing PSM and coefficients testing provides for a better analysis following the VOD hypothesis and does a better job of understanding the impact of daylight and the officer decision-making on traffic stops.Social implicationsBased on the quality of the data, the findings show that the use of VOD allows for the performance of more rigorous analyses of traffic stop data – giving police departments a better way to examine if racial profiling is evident.Originality/valueThis is the first study (to the researchers' knowledge) that applies the statistical analyses of PSM to the confines of the veil of darkness hypothesis.

scholarly journals Language from police body camera footage shows racial disparities in officer respect

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (25) ◽  
pp. 6521-6526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Voigt ◽  
Nicholas P. Camp ◽  
Vinodkumar Prabhakaran ◽  
William L. Hamilton ◽  
Rebecca C. Hetey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computational Linguistic ◽  
Procedural Justice ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
Black Community ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
White Community ◽  
Community Trust ◽  
Linguistic Methods

Using footage from body-worn cameras, we analyze the respectfulness of police officer language toward white and black community members during routine traffic stops. We develop computational linguistic methods that extract levels of respect automatically from transcripts, informed by a thin-slicing study of participant ratings of officer utterances. We find that officers speak with consistently less respect toward black versus white community members, even after controlling for the race of the officer, the severity of the infraction, the location of the stop, and the outcome of the stop. Such disparities in common, everyday interactions between police and the communities they serve have important implications for procedural justice and the building of police–community trust.

scholarly journals Re-prioritizing traffic stops to reduce motor vehicle crash outcomes and racial disparities

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Dolan Fliss ◽  
Frank Baumgartner ◽  
Paul Delamater ◽  
Steve Marshall ◽  
Charles Poole ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Motor Vehicle ◽  
Motor Vehicle Crash ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Vehicle Crash

Extending the Veil of Darkness Approach: An Examination of Racial Disproportionality in Traffic Stops in Durham, NC

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis A. Taniguchi ◽  
Joshua A. Hendrix ◽  
Alison Levin-Rector ◽  
Brian P. Aagaard ◽  
Kevin J. Strom ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Mixed Models ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Racial Disproportionality ◽  
The Veil ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Developed in 2006, the veil of darkness approach is one of the most widely accepted methods for assessing the impact of driver race on traffic stops. Building on the original methodology, we innovate in three important ways to enhance the veil of darkness approach: (a) invoke generalized linear mixed models to account for the lack of independence among observations in traffic stop data sets, (b) decompose the relationship between daylight and driver race to consider the role of driver sex, and (c) assess variability in racial disproportionality across law enforcement units. Nearly 20,000 traffic stops are analyzed for the Durham (NC) Police Department. Results indicate that more than 10% of the variability in the rate of Black drivers stopped is accounted for by officer-level factors, racial disproportionality was only for male drivers, and evidence of disproportionality was found among some units, but no evidence was found among others.

scholarly journals How do body-worn cameras affect the amount and makeup of police-initiated activities? A randomized controlled trial in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Lawrence ◽  
Bryce E. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Randomized Controlled Trial ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Sampling Procedure ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Milwaukee Police Department ◽  
Contamination Levels

Abstract Objectives Examine how the amount and makeup of police-initiated activities changed after the introduction of body-worn cameras (BWCs). Methods From May 21 to November 22, 2016, patrol officers and sergeants from the Milwaukee Police Department were involved in a randomized controlled trial. Through a stratified random sampling procedure, half the officers (n = 252) were assigned BWCs, while officers from the control group (n = 252) continued business as usual. The counts of proactive activities, which included a total count of self-initiated events, as well as traffic stops, business checks, subject stops, and park and walks, were examined using random-effects negative binominal panel regression analyses. The models included a unique measure of contamination to assess its impact on officers’ proactivity. Results BWCs had no impact on the total amount of officer-initiated activities, traffic stops, or business checks. Officers with BWCs conducted approximately 8% fewer subject stops and 23% more park and walks than those in the control group. In all models, contamination levels were significantly, positively associated with the number of proactive activities that were conducted; however, the size of this effect was very small. Conclusions Results suggest that BWC-wearing officers may be less likely to engage in proactive activities that are highly discretionary and that could potentially lead to confrontations with community members. As departments continue to develop BWC programs or fine-tune their existing BWC policies, more research is needed to understand the degree to which BWCs affect officers’ behaviors and interactions with the public.

At the intersection: Race, gender, and discretion in police traffic stop outcomes

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Kevin Roach ◽  
Frank R. Baumgartner ◽  
Leah Christiani ◽  
Derek A. Epp ◽  
Kelsey Shoub
Keyword(s):  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Situational Factor ◽  
Traffic Stops ◽  
Contextual Characteristic ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract 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 alleviating disparities in traffic stops for agencies is emphasizing traffic safety, rather than using stops as a supplemental investigatory tool.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document