 Does black and blue matter? An experimental investigation of race, perceptions of police, and legal complianceMackenzie Alston and Emily Owens Journal of Public Economics, 2025, vol. 249, issue C Abstract: Using an online experiment, we examine the role of race in perceptions of policing and willingness to violate the law. Black and White subjects were asked to imagine themselves driving in a real (but unnamed) majority White or majority non-White US city in which the police department was either majority White or majority non-White. Subjects were incentivized to drive quickly but also warned that they might receive a ticket based on their speed, their personal characteristics, and the real-life ticketing practices in that city. Expectations about the likelihood of being ticketed for speeding were higher among Black subjects than among White subjects. Black subjects also showed a higher willingness to pay for information on the racial makeup of the police department. However, Black subjects drove at similar speeds under all conditions tested, regardless of the racial demographics of the city, the racial composition of the police department, or the disparity or congruence of the two. By contrast, White subjects drove faster when police departments were not racially representative. Keywords: Policing; Criminal justice; Race; Discrimination; Experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:249:y:2025:i:c:s0047272725001604 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105462 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
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