IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcjust/v36yi2p138-153.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The intersection of racial profiling research and the law

Author

Listed:
  • Tillyer, Rob
  • Engel, Robin S.
  • Wooldredge, John

Abstract

There has been a significant increase in the litigation of selective enforcement cases based on racial profiling claims. This trend has resulted in two legal issues that are problematic for racial profiling research. First, selective enforcement claims that rely on statistical evidence must successfully measure "similarly situated persons" who were eligible for police stops to provide a comparison against those actually stopped by police. Second, the research must demonstrate "how much" statistical evidence of racial/ethnic disparities exists. Although these legal components are necessary for successful selective enforcement claims, the methodologies and statistical analyses currently used in racial profiling research cannot adequately address these issues. It is argued that the over-reliance on social science research, in general, and statistical techniques, specifically, to provide evidence of discrimination in selective enforcement cases places policing research and legal decision making at a crossroads.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:36:y::i:2:p:138-153
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-2352(08)00018-4
    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. John Knowles & Nicola Persico & Petra Todd, 2001. "Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(1), pages 203-232, February.
    2. Campos-Outcalt, D. & Prybylski, D. & Watkins, A.J. & Rothfus, G. & Dellapenna, A., 1997. "Motor-vehicle crash fatalities among American Indians and non-Indians in Arizona, 1979 through 1988," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(2), pages 282-285.
    3. Riksheim, Eric C. & Chermak, Steven M., 1993. "Causes of police behavior revisited," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 353-382.
    4. Engel, Robin S. & Johnson, Richard, 2006. "Toward a better understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in search and seizure rates," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 605-617.
    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. Tillyer, Rob & Hartley, Richard D., 2010. "Driving racial profiling research forward: Learning lessons from sentencing research," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 657-665, July.
    2. Tillyer, Rob & Engel, Robin S., 2012. "Racial differences in speeding patterns: Exploring the differential offending hypothesis," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 285-295.

    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. 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.
    2. Ajilore, Olugbenga, 2017. "Is There a 1033 Effect? Police Militarization and Aggressive Policing," MPRA Paper 82543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. 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.
    4. Ritter, Joseph A., 2017. "How do police use race in traffic stops and searches? Tests based on observability of race," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 82-98.
    5. Engel, Robin S. & Johnson, Richard, 2006. "Toward a better understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in search and seizure rates," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 605-617.
    6. Olugbenga Ajilore & Shane Shirey, 2017. "Do #AllLivesMatter? An Evaluation of Race and Excessive Use of Force by Police," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(2), pages 201-212, June.
    7. Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2013. "Still Not Allowed on the Bus: It Matters If You're Black or White!," IZA Discussion Papers 7300, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Paul Bose & Eberhard Feess & Helge Mueller, 2022. "Favoritism towards High-Status Clubs: Evidence from German Soccer," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 422-478.
    9. Anthony Edo & Nicolas Jacquemet & Constantine Yannelis, 2019. "Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 349-376, March.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Jan Eeckhout & Nicola Persico & Petra E. Todd, 2010. "A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1104-1135, June.
    13. Nicola Persico & Petra Todd, 2004. "Using Hit Rate Tests to Test for Racial Bias in Law Enforcement: Vehicle Searches in Wichita," NBER Working Papers 10947, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. David Bjerk, 2007. "Racial Profiling, Statistical Discrimination, and the Effect of a Colorblind Policy on the Crime Rate," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(3), pages 521-545, June.
    15. Robin, Stéphane & Rusinowska, Agnieszka & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2014. "Ingratiation: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 16-38.
    16. Daniel Martin & Philip Marx, 2022. "A Robust Test of Prejudice for Discrimination Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4527-4536, June.
    17. Ivan A Canay & Magne Mogstad & Jack Mount, 2024. "On the Use of Outcome Tests for Detecting Bias in Decision Making," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 2135-2167.
    18. Stéphane Mechoulan & Nicolas Sahuguet, 2015. "Assessing Racial Disparities in Parole Release," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 39-74.
    19. 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.
    20. Kurmangaliyeva Madina, 2018. "Missing Rich Offenders: Traffic Accidents and the Impartiality of Justice," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-29, March.

    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:36:y::i:2:p:138-153. 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.