Racial Threat,Suspicion,and Police Behavior

Abstract

Racial bias in traffic enforcement has become a popular line of inquiry, but examinations into explanations for the disparity have been scant. The current research integrates theoretical insights from the racial threat hypothesis with inferences drawn from the empirical analyses of the factors that stimulate officer suspicion. The most intriguing finding from this beat-level examination of the structural predictors of several traffic stop outcome measures concerns the conditional effect of the racial composition of the beat on search rates. The analyses reveal that the search rate increases in areas where the proportion of Black residents is higher; however, this finding is observed only for White motorists. This finding is interpreted as indicating that structural characteristics of an area can provide cues to officers regarding who belongs in that environment. As a result, social control increases among groups whose racial characteristics are inconsistent with the neighborhood racial composition.

Keywords

policing racial threat suspicion racial profiling

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alpert

G. P.

MacDonald

J. M.

Dunham

R. G.

(2005). Police suspicion and discretionary decision making during citizen stops. Criminology, 43, 407-434.

Alpert Group. (2004). Miami–Dade racial profiling study. Retrieved January 20, 2008, from http://www.aclufl.org/issues/racial_justice/miamidaderacialprofilingreport.cfm

Batton

Kadleck

(2004). Theoretical and methodological issues in racial profiling research. Police Quarterly, 7, 30-64.

Bierne

(1979). Empiricism and the critique of Marxism on law and crime. Social Problems, 26, 373-385.

Black

(1976). The behavior of law. New York: Academic Press.

Blalock

H. M.

Jr. (1967). Toward a theory of minority-group relations. New York: John Wiley.

Blau

(1982). The cost of inequality: Metropolitan structure and violent crime. American Sociological Review, 47, 114-129.

Borcherding

T. E.

Deacon

R. T.

(1972). The demand for services of non-federal governments. American Economic Review, 62, 891-901.

Brown

M. K.

(1981). Working the street: Police discretion and the dilemmas of reform. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

10.

Brown

R. A.

Frank

(2005). Police–citizen encounters and field citations: Do encounter characteristics influence ticketing? Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 28, 435-454.

11.

Bursik

R. J.

Grasmick

H. G.

(1993). Neighborhoods and crime: The dimensions of effective community control. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

12.

Cox

S. M.

Pease

S. E.

Miller

D. S.

Tyson

C. B.

(2001). Interim report of traffic stops statistics for the state of Connecticut. Rocky Hill, CT: Division of Criminal Justice.

13.

Crank

J. P.

(1998). Understanding police culture. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.

14.

Eitle

D’Alessio

S. J.

Stolzenberg

(2002). Racial threat and social control: A test of the political, economic, and threat of black crime hypotheses. Social Forces, 81, 557-576.

15.

Engel

R. S.

Calnon

J. M.

(2004). Comparing benchmark methodologies for police–citizen contacts: Traffic stop data collection for the Pennsylvania state police. Police Quarterly, 7, 97-125.

16.

Engel

R. S.

Calnon

J. M.

Bernard

T. J.

(2002). Theory and racial profiling: Shortcomings and future directions in research. Justice Quarterly, 19, 249-274.

17.

Fagan

Davies

(2000). Street cops and broken windows: Terry, race and disorder in New York City. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 28, 457-504.

18.

Fridell

L. A.

(2004). By the numbers: A guide for analyzing race data from vehicle stops. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.

19.

Gallup. (1999). Racial profiling is seen as widespread, particularly among young black men. Retrieved November 21, 2001, from http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr991209.asp

20.

Greenberg

D. F.

Kessler

R. C.

Loftin

(1985). Social inequality and crime control. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 76, 684-704.

21.

Harris

D. A.

(1999). The stories, the statistics, and the law: Why “driving while Black” matters. Minnesota Law Review, 84, 265-326.

22.

Harris

D. A.

(2002). Profiles in injustice: Why racial profiling cannot work. New York: New Press.

23.

Herbert

(1997). Policing space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles police department. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

24.

Jackson

P. I.

(1986). Black visibility, city size, and social control. The Sociological Quarterly, 27, 185-203.

25.

Jackson

P. I.

Carroll

(1981). Race and the war on crime: The sociopolitical determinates of municipal police expenditures in 90 non-Southern U.S. cities. American Sociological Review, 46, 290-305.

26.

Jacobs

(1979). Inequality and police strength: Conflict theory and coercive control in metropolitan areas. American Sociological Review, 44, 913-925.

27.

Jacobs

Helms

(1999). Collective outbursts, politics, and punitive resources: Toward a political sociology of spending on social control. Social Forces, 77, 1497-1523.

28.

Johnson

R. R.

(2006). Confounding influences on police detection of suspiciousness. Journal of Criminal Justice, 34, 432-442.

29.

Johnson

R. R.

(2007). Race and police reliance on suspicious non-verbal cues. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 30, 277-290.

30.

Kansas City Police Department. (2005). Kansas City, Missouri Police Department annual report: 2004. Kansas City, MO: Author.

31.

Klinger

D. A.

(1997). Negotiating order in patrol work: An ecological theory of police response to deviance. Criminology, 35, 277-306.

32.

Knowles

Persico

Todd

(2001). Racial bias in motor vehicle searches: Theory and evidence. Journal of Political Economy, 109, 203-299.

33.

Langan

P. A.

Greenfeld

L. A.

Smith

S. K.

Durose

M. R.

Levin

D. L.

(2001). Contacts between police and the public: Findings from the 1999 national survey. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

34.

Lange

J. E.

Johnson

M. B.

Voas

R. B.

(2005). Testing the racial profiling hypothesis for seemingly disparate traffic stops on the new jersey turnpike. Justice Quarterly, 22(2), 193-223.

35.

Liska

A. E.

(1987). A critical examination of macro perspectives on crime control. Annual Review of Sociology, 13, 67-88.

36.

Liska

A. E.

(1992). Social threat and social control. Albany: State University of New York Press.

37.

Liska

A. E.

(1997). Modeling the relationship between macro forms of social control. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 67-61.

38.

Liska

A. E.

Chamlin

M. B.

(1984). Social structures and crime control among macrosocial units. American Journal of Sociology, 90, 388-395.

39.

Liska

A. E.

Lawrence

J. J.

Sanchirico

(1982). Fear of crime as a social fact. Social Forces, 60, 760-761.

40.

Meehan

Ponder

(2002). Race and place: The ecology of racial profiling African American motorists. Justice Quarterly, 19, 399-430.

41.

Novak

K. J.

(2004). Disparity and racial profiling in traffic enforcement. Police Quarterly, 7, 65-96.

42.

Paoline

E. A.

Myers

S. M.

Worden

R. E.

(2000). Police culture, individualism, and community policing: Evidence from two police departments. Justice Quarterly, 17, 575-606.

43.

Paoline

E. A.

Terrill

(2005). The impact of police culture on traffic stop searches: An analysis of attitudes and behavior. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 28, 455-472.

44.

Parker

K. F.

Stults

B. J.

Rice

S. K.

(2005). Racial threat, concentrated disadvantage and social control: Considering the macro-level sources of variation in arrests. Criminology, 43, 1111-1134.

45.

Petrocelli

Piquero

A. R.

Smith

M. R.

(2003). Conflict theory and racial profiling: An empirical analysis of police traffic stop data. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31, 1-11.

46.

Quinney

(1970). The social reality of crime. Boston: Little, Brown.

47.

Quinney

(1977). Class, state and crime: On theory and practice of criminal justice. New York: McKay.

48.

Ramirez

McDevitt

Farrell

(2000). A resource guide on racial profiling data collection systems: Promising practices and lessons learned. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Assistance.

49.

Reitzel

Piquero

A. R.

(2006). Does it exist? Studying citizens’ attitudes of racial profiling. Police Quarterly, 9, 161-183.

50.

Reitzel

J. D.

Rice

S. K.

Piquero

A. R.

(2004). Lines and shadows: Perceptions of racial profiling and the Hispanic experience. Journal of Criminal Justice, 32, 607-616.

51.

Rojek

Rosenfeld

Decker

(2004). The influence of driver’s race on traffic stops in Missouri. Police Quarterly, 7, 126-147.

52.

Rubenstein

(1973). City police. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Girox.

53.

Sampson

R. J.

Groves

W. B.

(1989). Community structure and crime: Testing social-disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 774-802.

54.

Schafer

J. A.

Carter

D. L.

Katz-Bannister

Wells

W. M.

(2006). Decision-making in traffic stop encounters: A multivariate analysis of police behavior. Police Quarterly, 9, 184-209.

55.

Schwab

R. M.

Zampelli

E. M.

(1987). Disentangling the demand function from the production function for local public services. Journal of Public Economics, 33, 245-260.

56.

Skogan

W. G.

(1995). Crime and the racial fears of White Americans. Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 539, 59-72.

57.

Skolnick

J. H.

(1994). Justice without trial: Law enforcement in democratic society (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan.

58.

Smith

B. W.

Holmes

M. D.

(2003). Community accountability, minority threat, and police brutality: An examination of civil rights criminal complaints. Criminology, 41, 1035-1064.

59.

Smith

D. A.

(1986). The neighborhood context of police behavior. In Reiss

A. J.

Jr. Tonry

(Eds.), Communities and crime (pp. 313-342). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

60.

Smith

M. R.

Makarios

Alpert

G. P.

(2006). Differential suspicion: Theory specification and gender effects in the traffic stop context. Justice Quarterly, 23, 271-295.

61.

Smith

M. R.

Petrocelli

(2001). Racial profiling? A mulitvariate analysis of police traffic stop data. Police Quarterly, 4, 4-27.

62.

Swigert

V. L.

Farrell

R. A.

(1977). Normal homicides and the law. American Sociological Review, 42, 16-32.

63.

Turk

(1969). Criminality and the legal order. Chicago: Rand McNally.

64.

United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002).

65.

Walker

(2001). Searching for the denominator: Problems with police traffic stop data and early warning system solution. Justice Research and Policy, 3, 63-95.

66.

Withrow

B. L.

(2004a). A comparative analysis of commonly used benchmarks in racial profiling: A research note. Justice Research and Policy, 6, 1-22.

67.

Withrow

B. L.

(2004b). Driving while different: A potential theoretical explanation for race-based policing. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 15, 344-364.

68.

Withrow

B. L.

(2006). Racial profiling: From rhetoric to reason. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

69.

Worden

R. E.

(1995). Police officers’ belief systems: A framework for analysis. American Journal of Police, 14, 49-81.

70.

Zingraff

M. T.

Mason

H. M.

Smith

W. R.

Tomaskovic-Devey

Warren

McMurray

H. L.

. (2000). Evaluating North Carolina state highway patrol data: Citations, warnings, and searches in 1998. Retrieved November 21, 2001, from http://www.nccrimecontrol.org/shp/ncshpreport.htm