Racial Influences on the Likelihood of Police Searches and Search Hits: A Longitudinal Analysis from an American Midwestern City

Abstract

In the recent past, there has been a significant policy space and political salience for issues pertaining to racial profiling and alleged discriminatory police practices. Problems and questions surrounding racial profiling are important as they challenge the fundamental assumptions of our legal system by corroding its most basic components of fairness and equality. The systemic assumption is, of course, that police do not use race as a criterion (or pretext) for discretionary traffic stops. The present study examined traffic stop data from officerinitiated traffic stops collected from a Midwestern American police agency over a two-year period (N = 13,566). In concordance with previous studies, multivariate analysis shows that minorities were searched at a higher rate than are white motorists. Results also suggest that police search minorities at a disproportionate rate compared to whites and are less successful in finding contraband on minority motorists.

In contrast to some previous research, however, findings from the present analysis also showed large variations within minority populations; Native Americans were searched four times more than whites, Latinos were searched almost three times more frequently than whites, and blacks were searched below the overall ‘minority average’ in the examined jurisdiction. These findings would suggest that a simple dichotomisation of race/ethnicity disguise and camouflage potentially important racial differences.