“Blacks Can’t Jump”: The Racialization of Transit Police Responses to Fare Evasion

Abstract

This study demonstrates that racially disparate fare evasion citation outcomes are the product of racialized social systems that allow transit police officers to determine the belongingness of Black riders in systems of mass transit. Using citation data from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, we test the impact of race and place attributes on transit officer decisions to allocate punishment for subway fare evasion using mixed effects logistic regression controlling for individual and contextual predictors. Although rider racial identity alone proves statistically irrelevant, Black riders suspected of fare evasion possess an elevated risk for being fined as opposed to merely being warned at stations located within predominately white neighborhoods and as stations increase in ridership. These findings demonstrate how transit police officer discretion challenges Black belongingness on systems of public transportation. Broader implications of this work include the importance of scholarship linking statistical disparities to organizational intent and integrating diverse voices in policing policy development.