Examining the influence of drivers' characteristics during traffic stops with police: Results from a national survey

The factors that influence officer decision making after a traffic stop is initiated are examined using the Police-Public Contact Survey data collected in 1999. This investigation of police behavior is framed with an understanding of the organizational roots of racial profiling tactics and policies. The findings show that young black and Hispanic males are at increased risk for citations, searches, arrests, and uses of force after other extralegal and legal characteristics are controlled. Additional analyses show that minority drivers are not, however, more likely to be carrying contraband than are white drivers. The implications for policy and future research are discussed.

[1]  Hartley Shawcross,et al.  THE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL , 1953 .

[2]  M. Ivimey.  Annual report , 1958, IRE Transactions on Engineering Writing and Speech.

[3]  H. Mendelsohn,et al.  Minorities and the police , 1968 .

[4]  J A Benshoof,et al.  CHARACTERISTICS OF DRIVERS' ROUTE SELECTION BEHAVIOUR , 1970 .

[5]  H. Jacob,et al.  Black and White Perceptions of Justice in the City , 1971 .

[6]  K. R. W. Brewer,et al.  THE EFFECT OF SAMPLE STRUCTURE ON ANALYTICAL SURVEYS1,2 , 1973 .

[7]  Joseph M. Hillery,et al.  Black-White Differences in Nonverbal Behavior in an Interview Setting. , 1974 .

[8]  S. Albrecht,et al.  ATTITUDES TOWARD THE POLICE AND THE LARGER ATTITUDE COMPLEX , 1977 .

[9]  Michael J. Hindelang,et al.  Correlates of Delinquency: The Illusion of Discrepancy between Self-Report and Official Measures. , 1979 .

[10]  R. Scaglion,et al.  The Structure of Black and White Attitudes toward Police , 1980 .

[11]  Training University Police in Black-American Nonverbal Behaviors , 1981 .

[12]  Scott H. Decker,et al.  Citizen Attitudes Toward the Police: A Review of Past Findings and Suggestions for Future Policy , 1981 .

[13]  D. Carter.  Hispanic interaction with the criminal justice system in Texas: Experiences, attitudes, and perceptions , 1983 .

[14]  W. DuMouchel,et al.  Using Sample Survey Weights in Multiple Regression Analyses of Stratified Samples , 1983 .

[15]  H. Lloyd-Jones.  Malign neglect , 1984 .

[16]  Stuart A. Scheingold,et al.  The Politics of Law and Order: Street Crime and Public Policy , 1984 .

[17]  Geoffrey P. Alpert,et al.  Neighborhood Differences in Attitudes Toward Policing: Evidence For a Mixed-Strategy Model of Policing in a Multi-Ethnic Setting , 1988 .

[18]  Stuart A. Scheingold.  The Politics of Street Crime: Criminal Process and Cultural Obsession , 1991 .

[19]  A. Biderman,et al.  Understanding Crime Incidence Statistics: Why the UCR Diverges From the NCS , 1991 .

[20]  A. Biderman,et al.  Understanding Crime Incidence Statistics , 1991 .

[21]  Aldert Vrij,et al.  Cultural patterns in Dutch and Surinam nonverbal behavior: An analysis of simulated police/citizen encounters , 1991 .

[22]  A. Vrij,et al.  Crosscultural Police‐Citizen Interactions: The Influence of Race, Beliefs, and Nonverbal Communication on Impression Formation1 , 1992 .

[23]  Robert H. Langworthy,et al.  Institutional Perspective on Policing , 1992 .

[24]  G. Becker,et al.  Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior , 1993, Journal of Political Economy.

[25]  Steven M. Chermak,et al.  Causes of police behavior revisited , 1993 .

[26]  T. Liao.  Interpreting Probability Models: Logit, Probit, and Other Generalized Linear Models , 1994 .

[27]  J. Crank.  Watchman and community: Myth and institutionalization in policing , 1994 .

[28]  J. Lasley.  The impact of the Rodney king incident on citizen attitudes toward police , 1994 .

[29]  Vincent J. Webb,et al.  The relative importance of race and ethnicity on citizen attitudes toward the police , 1995 .

[30]  Robert H. Langworthy,et al.  Fragmented centralization and the organization of the police , 1996 .

[31]  Jerome G. Miller.  Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System , 1996 .

[32]  Jeffrey B. Snipes,et al.  Law enforcement in a time of community policing , 1996 .

[33]  Randall Kennedy,et al.  Race, Crime, and the Law , 1997 .

[34]  Ronald Weitzer,et al.  Trends: Racial Differences in Attitudes Toward the Police , 1997 .

[35]  David A. Klinger,et al.  NEGOTIATING ORDER IN PATROL WORK: AN ECOLOGICAL THEORY OF POLICE RESPONSE TO DEVIANCE* , 1997 .

[36]  David A. Harris.  'Driving While Black' and (All) Other Traffic Offenses: The Supreme Court and Pretextual Traffic Stops , 1997 .

[37]  J Boyle,et al.  NATIONAL SURVEY OF SPEEDING AND OTHER UNSAFE DRIVING ACTIONS. VOLUME II: DRIVER ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR , 1998 .

[38]  G. Whitney,et al.  Crime and Racial Profiling by U.S. Police: Is There an Empirical Basis? , 1999 .

[39]  State Constitutional Analysis of Pretext Stops: Racial Profiling and Public Policy Concerns , 1999 .

[40]  Ian Ayres,et al.  Determinants of Citations to Articles in Elite Law Reviews , 1999 .

[41]  Sharon L. Lohr,et al.  Sampling: Design and Analysis , 1999 .

[42]  D. L. Stone,et al.  INTERIM REPORT OF THE STATE POLICE REVIEW TEAM REGARDING ALLEGATIONS OF RACIAL PROFILING , 1999 .

[43]  Ronald Weitzer,et al.  Race, Class, and Perceptions of Discrimination by the Police , 1999 .

[44]  "Driving While Black": Corollary Phenomena and Colateral Consequences , 1999 .

[45]  Ronald Weitzer.  Racialized Policing: Residents' Perceptions in Three Neighborhoods , 2000 .

[46]  K. Strom,et al.  Traffic Stop Data Collection Policies for State Police, 1999 , 2000 .

[47]  David Cole,et al.  No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System , 2000 .

[48]  David A. Harris.  The Stories, the Statistics and the Law: Why 'Driving While Black' Matters , 2000 .

[49]  Cassia Spohn,et al.  THE IMPRISONMENT PENALTY PAID BY YOUNG, UNEMPLOYED BLACK AND HISPANIC MALE OFFENDERS , 2000 .

[50]  Richard J. Durbin.  U.S. Customs Service: Better Targeting of Airline Passengers for Personal Searches Could Produce Better Results. , 2000 .

[51]  S. Trende.  Why Modest Proposals Offer the Best Solution for Combating Racial Profiling , 2000 .

[52]  Robert B. Voas,et al.  Ethnicity and alcohol-related fatalities : 1990 to 1994 , 2000 .

[53]  Matthew Petrocelli,et al.  Racial Profiling? A Multivariate Analysis of Police Traffic Stop Data , 2001 .

[54]  Terrance J. Taylor,et al.  Coppin' an attitude: Attitudinal differences among juveniles toward police , 2001 .

[55]  Federal Drug Offenders, 1999 with Trends 1984-99 , 2001 .

[56]  Jeffrey Fagan,et al.  Street Stops and Broken Windows: Terry, Race and Disorder in New York City , 2001 .

[57]  J. Knowles,et al.  Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence , 1999, Journal of Political Economy.

[58]  L. Fridell,et al.  Racially Biased Policing: A Principled Response , 2001 .

[59]  Robin S. Engel,et al.  Policing mentally disordered suspects: a reexamination of the criminalization hypothesis , 2001 .

[60]  K. Maguire,et al.  Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics, 1979 , 1981 .

[61]  I. Ayres.  Outcome Tests of Racial Disparities in Police Practices , 2002 .

[62]  James Frank,et al.  Revisiting the Decision to Arrest: Comparing Beat and Community Officers , 2002 .

[63]  J. Fagan.  Law, Social Science, and Racial Profiling , 2002 .

[64]  J. Lynch.  Using Citizen Surveys to Produce Information on the Police: The Present and Potential Uses of the National Crime Victimization Survey , 2002 .

[65]  K. Rasinski,et al.  Battle Fatigue: Is Public Support Waning for “War”-Centered Drug Control Strategies? , 2002 .

[66]  Robin S. Engel,et al.  Theory and racial profiling: Shortcomings and future directions in research , 2002 .

[67]  Reply to Professor Lynch , 2002 .

[68]  David A. Harris.  Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work , 2002 .

[69]  Stephen D. Mastrofski,et al.  Situational and officer-based determinants of police coercion , 2002 .

[70]  The Un-Balanced Fourth Amendment: A Cultural Study of the Drug War, Racial Profiling and Arvizu , 2002 .

[71]  Ronald Weitzer,et al.  PERCEPTIONS OF RACIAL PROFILING: RACE, CLASS, AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE , 2002 .

[72]  Richard J. Lundman,et al.  DRIVING WHILE BLACK: EFFECTS OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND GENDER ON CITIZEN SELF‐REPORTS OF TRAFFIC STOPS AND POLICE ACTIONS* , 2003 .

[73]  Robin S. Engel.  Explaining suspects' resistance and disrespect toward police , 2003 .

[74]  Kenneth J. Novak,et al.  Disparity and Racial Profiling in Traffic Enforcement , 2004 .

[75]  Robin S. Engel,et al.  Comparing Benchmark Methodologies for Police-Citizen Contacts: Traffic Stop Data Collection for the Pennsylvania State Police , 2004 .

[76]  A. Dula,et al.  When race matters. , 2005, Clinics in geriatric medicine.

[77]  John E. Eck,et al.  Have Changes in Policing Reduced Violent Crime? An Assessment of the Evidence , 2005 .