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Racial profiling or racist policing? bounds tests in aggregate data

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Rubén Hernández-Murillo
John Knowles

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Abstract

State-wide reports on police traffic stops and searches summarize very large populations, making them potentially powerful tools for identifying racial bias, particularly when statistics on search outcomes are included. But when the reported statistics conflate searches involving different levels of police discretion, standard tests for racial bias are not applicable. This paper develops a model of police search decisions that allows for non-discretionary searches and derives tests for racial bias in data that mixes different search types. Our tests reject unbiased policing as an explanation of the disparate impact of motor-vehicle searches on minorities in Missouri

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its series Working Papers with number 2004-012.

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Date of creation: 2004
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Publication status: Published in International Economic Review, August 2004, 45(3), pp. 959-89
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2004-012

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Keywords: Households ; Public policy;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Dhammika Dharmapala & Stephen Ross, 2004. "Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Additional Theory and Evidence," Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1310-1310. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Bunzel, Helle & Marcoul, Philippe, 2003. "Can Racially Unbiased Police Perpetuate Long-Run Discrimination?," Staff General Research Papers 10200, Iowa State University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  3. John V. Pepper, 2000. "The Intergenerational Transmission Of Welfare Receipt: A Nonparametric Bounds Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(3), pages 472-488, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. repec:att:wimass:199217 is not listed on IDEAS
  5. Horowitz, Joel L & Manski, Charles F, 1995. "Identification and Robustness with Contaminated and Corrupted Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(2), pages 281-302, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Kreider, Brent & Pepper, John V., 2003. "Inferring Disability Status from Corrupt Data," Staff General Research Papers 10228, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
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  7. Guido Imbens & Charles F. Manski, 2003. "Confidence intervals for partially identified parameters," CeMMAP working papers CWP09/03, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Kate L. Antonovics & Brian G. Knight, 2004. "A New Look at Racial Profiling: Evidence from the Boston Police Department," NBER Working Papers 10634, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Nicola Persico & Petra E. Todd, 2005. "Passenger Profiling, Imperfect Screening, and Airport Security," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 127-131, May. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Hugo Mialon & Sue Mialon, 2008. "The Economics of Search Warrants," Emory Economics 0810, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
  4. David Bjerk, 2004. "Racial Profiling, Statistical Discrimination, and the Effect of a Colorblind Policy on the Crime Rate," Department of Economics Working Papers 2004-11, McMaster University. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Brian Williams & Michael Stahl, 2008. "An analysis of police traffic stops and searches in Kentucky: a mixed methods approach offering heuristic and practical implications," Policy Sciences, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 221-243, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Shamena Anwar & Hanming Fang, 2006. "An Alternative Test of Racial Prejudice in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 127-151, March. [Downloadable!]
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