Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Racial Profiling Research

Abstract

Racial profiling has generated a significant amount of social concern in American society. Yet little is known about the etiology of this phenomenon, in part because its defining characteristics have yet to be identified and conceptualized. In this article, the authors summarize and organize the existing racial profiling literature and establish a strong conceptual foundation for future racial profiling research. Four issues that must be explicitly addressed in the conceptualization process of research on racial profiling are identified and described: realm of activity, level of aggregation and unit of analysis, population of interest, and characteristics of the incident. These factors have methodological implications in terms of data collection, control variables, and methods of analysis.

Race and repeats: The impact of officer performance on racially biased policing

“…R. Smith et al, 2003). Some argue that 'racial profiling' has been used only in reference to traffic stops (Batton & Kadleck, 2004), while others extend the term to any motor vehicle stop (TomaskovicDevey, Mason, & Zingraff, 2004), pedestrian stops (Spitzer, 1999), or police action (Novak, 2004;Ramirez et al, 2000).…”

Driving racial profiling research forward: Learning lessons from sentencing research

“…Multivariate analyses began to be employed in racial profiling research when the emphasis shifted from studying the decision to initiate a traffic stop to identifying the correlates of post-stop outcomes. Specifying the exact impact of drivers' race/ethnicity on officer decision-making requires the collection of multiple pieces of information to ensure proper model specification (Batton & Kadleck, 2004;Fridell, 2004;Ramirez, McDevitt, & Farrell, 2000).…”

Examining the Generality of Citizens' Views on Racial Profiling in Diverse Situational Contexts

“…This indicates support for our hypothesis that citizens' perceptions of the widespread nature of racial profiling will converge into a latent measure of racial profiling. This view is not consistent with Batton and Kadleck's (2004) assumption that pieces of racial profiling offer distinct areas of racial profiling and should be studied separately. Figure 2 presents the results of the CFA analysis for citizens' views regarding the justification of racial profiling.…”