Vehicle Stops and Group Position: How Missouri Agencies Use Place and Race to Explain Disparities

Abstract

Missouri has been a part of the national discussion on racial profiling for several years—most recently with the NAACP’s issuance of a statewide travel advisory warning Black motorists of high disproportionality in vehicle stops. In their annual reports of stop data, agencies can submit a response to explain their numerical data. This study inductively analyzes the content of these written responses (N = 806), which were submitted between 2001 and 2019. Findings indicate that agency responses contain rationales in accordance with a sense of group position, with explanations for stops, searches, and arrests of motorists of color framed in terms of outsiders as a problematic influx upon insider spaces. The responses also show that the explanations are more about policing place than a legitimate effort at maintaining safety of the jurisdiction. The results of this study have several important implications for research, theory, and policy.

Keywords

policing race/ethnicity racial profiling group position out of place

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