After the Traffic Stops: Officer Characteristics and Enforcement Actions

Close Billy R () and Patrick Mason
Additional contact information
Close Billy R: Florida State University

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2006, vol. 6, issue 1, 43

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between officer characteristics and racially biased policing. In particular, we explore the relationship between the officer's race/ethnicity and the nature and extent of excessive enforcement actions by race. We derive an efficient enforcement action theorem which suggests that if public safety is the sole concern of police agencies, then racially and ethnically biased policing will not be a persistent element of police practice. Alternatively, our political economic model suggests that police apply more severe sanctions against other-group drivers. Our results show that the race and ethnicity of officers have a significant and substantive impact on the intensity of enforcement actions by the Florida Highway Patrol against stopped drivers.

Keywords: racial profiling; biased policing; police discretion; discrimination; political economy of policing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1538-0653.1538 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:topics.6:y:2006:i:1:n:24

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/bejeap/html

DOI: 10.2202/1538-0653.1538

Access Statistics for this article

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy is currently edited by Hendrik Jürges and Sandra Ludwig

More articles in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().