Decision Making in Traffic Stop Encounters: A Multivariate Analysis of Police Behavior

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growth in public concern over police decisionmaking practices during traffic enforcement. Catch phrases such as "racial profiling," "driving while Black," and "driving while brown" typify the public's concern that race and ethnicity have undue influence on police discretion. This study analyzes traffic stop data from a medium-sized midwestern community to better understand this facet of police behavior. Although the authors contend that "proving" racial profiling may be outside of current empirical capabilities, useful insights can still be obtained by examining broader aspects of traffic enforcement behaviors. The analysis indicated that race was powerful in shaping police decision-making patterns, but so were gender, age, and situational considerations. A number of implications for research and policy emerging from the analysis are discussed.Since the inception of modern policing systems, there has been concern about the role played by race and ethnicity in policing and police decisionmaking practices. One of the most pervasive issues currently is the debate

Police Perspectives on Road Safety and Transport Politics in Germany

“…In some countries, there is a considerable degree of freedom as to how controls or traffic offences are handled by the police. Research shows, for instance, that traffic stop decisions (including outcomes of exit, frisk, search, penalty or arrest) are influenced by race, gender, age and social status of drivers, along with situational considerations [26,27].…”

(Cr)immigrant framing in border areas: decision-making processes of Dutch border police officers

“…Meanwhile a wealth of studies has addressed decision-making processes of regular police officers, and the issue of ethno-racial profiling in stop-and-search contexts in particular (Holmberg 2000, Waddington et al 2004, Wilson et al 2004, Alpert et al 2005, Dunham 2005, Schafer et al 2006, Stroshine et al 2008, Parmar 2011, Quinton 2011, Fallik and Novak 2012, Tillyer 2012, Mutsaers 2014. Whereas this body of research has provided valuable insights in the way regular police officers exercise their discretion in crime control, border policing officers have a fundamentally different task -as their main focus is migration control -and they are often equipped with powers in both crime control and migration control (Sklansky 2012).…”

Policing the roads: traffic cops, ‘Boy Racers’ and anti-social behaviour

“…Becker (1963: 158) argues that a great deal of enforcement activity is given not to the actual enforcement of rules, but to the coercion of respect from members of the public: '…one may be labelled as deviant not because he [sic] has actually broken a rule, but because he has shown disrespect to the enforcer of the rule'. Hence the demeanour and social characteristics of an individual (in terms of gender, age, social class, and ethnicity), may also influence the officer's use of enforcement or discretion (see Norris et al 1992;Reiss, 1971;Rubinstein, 1973;Schafer et al 2006). Selective enforcement is thus a routine aspect of contemporary police work (Smith and Visher, 1981) however it has been shown that police officers tend to view discretion as an alternative means to the same ends (Aaronson et al 1981).…”

“…Police decision-making is not merely a function of the individual police officer, but also of the collective culture found within police organisations (Schafer et al 2006). This cultural practice results from the interaction between the socio-political context of police work and the various dimensions of police organisational knowledge (Chan, 1996).…”