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Frisky business: race, gender and police activity during traffic stops

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  • Matt Ryan

Abstract

Since the United States Supreme Court laid the foundation for “stop-and-frisk” activity by police departments, a substantial amount of research has explored the behavior of police departments, particularly with respect to race. But previous work rarely focuses on the individual’s probability of receiving a frisk. By exploiting a traffic stop-level dataset from the Pittsburgh Police Department, the marginal effects of assorted driver characteristics are estimated. While the broad characterization of African-American drivers being more likely to receive a frisk remains accurate, several related factors are identified that create a more nuanced picture of a driver’s probability of being frisked. The interaction of the gender of the driver, the time of day of the traffic stop, and the existence of passengers in the stopped vehicle with the race of the driver all impact the probability of receiving a frisk. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Suggested Citation

  • Matt Ryan, 2016. "Frisky business: race, gender and police activity during traffic stops," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 65-83, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:41:y:2016:i:1:p:65-83
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-015-9493-0
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Matt E. Ryan, 2020. "The heat: temperature, police behavior and the enforcement of law," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 187-203, April.
    2. Emma Pierson & Camelia Simoiu & Jan Overgoor & Sam Corbett-Davies & Daniel Jenson & Amy Shoemaker & Vignesh Ramachandran & Phoebe Barghouty & Cheryl Phillips & Ravi Shroff & Sharad Goel, 2020. "A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(7), pages 736-745, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Frisking; Race; Traffic stops; Gender; K00; K42;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

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