Vehicle Stops and Group Position: How Missouri Agencies Use Place and Race to Explain Disparities

Abstract

Missouri has been a part of the national discussion on racial profiling for several years—most recently with the NAACP’s issuance of a statewide travel advisory warning Black motorists of high disproportionality in vehicle stops. In their annual reports of stop data, agencies can submit a response to explain their numerical data. This study inductively analyzes the content of these written responses ( N = 806), which were submitted between 2001 and 2019. Findings indicate that agency responses contain rationales in accordance with a sense of group position, with explanations for stops, searches, and arrests of motorists of color framed in terms of outsiders as a problematic influx upon insider spaces. The responses also show that the explanations are more about policing place than a legitimate effort at maintaining safety of the jurisdiction. The results of this study have several important implications for research, theory, and policy.

“Racism Masked as Safety Concerns”: The Experiences of Residents of Color With Racialized Coveillance in a Predominantly White Neighborhood

“…He recalls a post about an “older Black guy that used to fish [at the neighborhood lake] and people are like, ‘Who’s this suspicious guy?’ ‘It’s an old dude, a retired dude fishing!’” After seeing this and other similar posts, he left the platform. Importantly, online racialized coveillance not only relies on “race out of place” logics that criminalize the presence of Black and Latinx men in Rockville (Craig et al 2022; Welsh et al 2021), it also generates fear among respondents that they could be misidentified as suspicious.…”

Understanding vehicle consent search requests through the use of the social conditioning model and illusory correlation

“…However, the findings show that Black drivers face unequal treatment throughout Philadelphia. Craig et al (2022) analyzed written responses in the context of traffic stops in Missouri between 2001 and 2019 (n = 807). The authors used Blumer's (1958) group position theory (the view that White citizens as the ingroup will be threatened or have negative attitudes when minority citizens start to move in on what is considered "White" areas) as a theoretical explanation for the qualitative reasoning police officers gave for why they conducted a traffic stop.…”

“…“ Out-of-place” policing refers to the issue of police officers stopping minority drivers traveling outside their communities and into the racially segregated areas of another community, because the officers believe these drivers are “out-of-place” (Bass, 2001; Craig et al, 2022). “Out-of-place” policing can also become intertwined with racial profiling.…”

Racism and violence in policing: Perspectives from a juvenile prison

“…Researchers have consistently documented ethnoracial inequities in negative interactions between people who work in policing and members of the community. Research has also demonstrated disproportionate stops of Black and Latine motorists relative to White and non‐Latine motorists, respectively (Craig et al, 2022; Pierson et al, 2020). Additionally, in comparison with people identified as White and non‐Latine, people identified as Black and those identified as Latine were significantly more likely to experience the use of force during policing encounters (Fryer, 2019; Geller, 2021).…”

“…Researchers have consistently documented ethnoracial inequities in negative interactions between people who work in policing and members of the community. Research has also demonstrated disproportionate stops of Black and Latine motorists relative to White and non-Latine motorists, respectively (Craig et al, 2022;Pierson et al, 2020).…”