IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcjust/v38yi1p77-87.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are police-reported driving while Black data a valid indicator of the race and ethnicity of the traffic law violators police stop? A negative answer with minor qualifications

Author

Listed:
  • Lundman, Richard J.

Abstract

Are police-reported driving while Black data a valid indicator of the race and ethnicity of the drivers police stop? This research answered that question by advancing the first multivariate analysis of race and ethnicity missingness in the traffic stop data reported by Boston police during April and May of 2001. The most important multivariate story the data tell was that race and ethnicity missingness was significantly nonrandom on multiple dimensions, including the second month of data collection, for drivers living in zip codes with above average and average people of color, for drivers living in zip codes with above average and average poor people, and for drivers whose stop ended in a ticket. The results therefore supported a clear answer to a fundamentally important question about the validity of the driving while Black data reported by police. Based upon the present research and with minor qualifications, police-reported driving while Black data were not valid because they underestimated the frequency with which police stop drivers of color.

Suggested Citation

  • Lundman, Richard J., 2010. "Are police-reported driving while Black data a valid indicator of the race and ethnicity of the traffic law violators police stop? A negative answer with minor qualifications," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 77-87, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:38:y::i:1:p:77-87
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-2352(09)00145-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sun, Ivan Y., 2007. "Policing domestic violence: Does officer gender matter?," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 581-595, December.
    2. Culver, Leigh, 2004. "The impact of new immigration patterns on the provision of police services in midwestern communities," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 329-344.
    3. Schafer, Joseph A. & Mastrofski, Stephen D., 2005. "Police leniency in traffic enforcement encounters: Exploratory findings from observations and interviews," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 225-238.
    4. Grogger, Jeffrey & Ridgeway, Greg, 2006. "Testing for Racial Profiling in Traffic Stops From Behind a Veil of Darkness," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 101, pages 878-887, September.
    5. Bazley, Thomas D. & Lersch, Kim Michelle & Mieczkowski, Thomas, 2007. "Officer force versus suspect resistance: A gendered analysis of patrol officers in an urban police department," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 183-192.
    6. Riksheim, Eric C. & Chermak, Steven M., 1993. "Causes of police behavior revisited," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 353-382.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anthony Vito & George Higgins & Gennaro Vito, 2021. "Police Stop and Frisk and the Impact of Race: A Focal Concerns Theory Approach," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lundman, Richard J., 2009. "Officer gender and traffic ticket decisions: Police blue or women too?," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 342-352, July.
    2. Kowalski, Brian R. & Lundman, Richard J., 2007. "Vehicle stops by police for driving while Black: Common problems and some tentative solutions," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 165-181.
    3. Kevin Lang & Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer, 2020. "Race Discrimination: An Economic Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 68-89, Spring.
    4. Brown, Robert A. & Novak, Kenneth J. & Frank, James, 2009. "Identifying variation in police officer behavior between juveniles and adults," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 200-208, March.
    5. Weitzer, Ronald, 2000. "White, black, or blue cops? Race and citizen assessments of police officers," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 313-324.
    6. Ingrid Gould Ellen & Stephen L. Ross, 2018. "Race and the City," Working Papers 2018-022, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    7. Miller, Kirk, 2009. "Race, driving, and police organization: Modeling moving and nonmoving traffic stops with citizen self-reports of driving practices," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 564-575, November.
    8. Biradavolu, Monica Rao & Burris, Scott & George, Annie & Jena, Asima & Blankenship, Kim M., 2009. "Can sex workers regulate police? Learning from an HIV prevention project for sex workers in southern India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1541-1547, April.
    9. DeAngelo, Gregory & Owens, Emily G., 2017. "Learning the ropes: General experience, task-Specific experience, and the output of police officers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 368-377.
    10. Debopam Bhattacharya & Shin Kanaya & Margaret Stevens, 2017. "Are University Admissions Academically Fair?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 449-464, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Briggs Depew & Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan, 2017. "Judges, Juveniles, and In-Group Bias," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 209-239.
    13. Tillyer, Rob & Engel, Robin S. & Wooldredge, John, 2008. "The intersection of racial profiling research and the law," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 138-153, May.
    14. Emily M. Farris & Mirya R. Holman, 2015. "Public Officials and a “Private” Matter: Attitudes and Policies in the County Sheriff Office Regarding Violence Against Women," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1117-1135, December.
    15. Ajilore, Olugbenga, 2017. "Is There a 1033 Effect? Police Militarization and Aggressive Policing," MPRA Paper 82543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Sun, Ivan Y. & Payne, Brian K. & Wu, Yuning, 2008. "The impact of situational factors, officer characteristics, and neighborhood context on police behavior: A multilevel analysis," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 22-32, March.
    17. Schafer, Joseph A. & Mastrofski, Stephen D., 2005. "Police leniency in traffic enforcement encounters: Exploratory findings from observations and interviews," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 225-238.
    18. Poteyeva, Margarita & Sun, Ivan Y., 2009. "Gender differences in police officers' attitudes: Assessing current empirical evidence," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 512-522, September.
    19. Anwar Shamena & Fang Hanming, 2012. "Testing for the Role of Prejudice in Emergency Departments Using Bounceback Rates," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(3), pages 1-49, December.
    20. James A. Dearden & Suhui Li & Chad D. Meyerhoefer & Muzhe Yang, 2017. "Demonstrated Interest: Signaling Behavior In College Admissions," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 630-657, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:38:y::i:1:p:77-87. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcrimjus .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.