1. Paper for submission to Law and Society Review
Driving While Black and the Officer is White: Officer and Driver Characteristics and the Odds of Search following a Routine Traffic Stop
Frank R. Baumgartner*, Kate Bell, Luke Beyer, Tara Boldrin, Libby Doyle, Lindsey Govan, Jack Halpert, Jackson Hicks, Katherine Kyriakoudes, Cat Lee, Mackenzie Leger, Sarah McAdon, Sarah Michalak, Caroline Murphy, Eyan Neal, Olivia O’Malley, Emily Payne, Audrey Sapirstein, Sally Stanley, Kathryn Thacker
Paper for submission to Law and Society Review
Draft, November 12, 2018

2. Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?
Abstract
Using data from two years of traffic stops in Charlotte, NC, we evaluate the factors associated with the officer’s decision to search the driver or vehicle. White male officers, officers with less experience, drivers that fit the “young minority male” criminal stereotype, and traffic stops for investigatory rather than safety purposes and in low-income neighborhoods powerfully affect the odds of search. These go from zero percent to over 30 percent as a given interaction includes more targeting factors. There is little racial effect in the odds of search among women, for either drivers or officers. Among males, however, white officers show more than double the odds of search than other officers, and black drivers are much more likely to be searched than whites. While male officers are particularly likely to be aggressive in their interactions with motorists, a finding that may have wide implications.
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

3. Theories of Disparate Outcomes
The Traffic Stop
Traffic Safety v. Investigatory Stops
Location (“High crime areas”)
The Officer
White male officers more assertive
Officers less assertive with more years of experience
Assertiveness may correlate with other behaviors.
The Driver
Young men of color v. all other drivers
Gender effects stronger among males compared to females
The Intersectional Nature of Disadvantage
Targeting characteristics accumulate multiplicatively, not additively
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

4. Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?
Literature
Many scholars have looked at traffic stops
Pulled Over: based on survey of drivers (Epp et al. 2014)
Suspect Citizens: based on review of NC traffic stops (Baumgartner et al. 2018)
Scores of articles on the topic
Our innovations
Officer- and driver-level effects
Direct test for “location” hypothesis
Intersectional approach: Race and Gender interacted
Intersectional approach: Multiple targeted characteristics assessed individually
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

5. Hypotheses (I): Higher search rates expected for:
H1. White male officers.
H2. Officers with less experience.
H4. Young minority males.
H6. Investigatory rather than safety stops.
H7. Areas of the city with more poverty.
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

6. Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?
Hypotheses (II)
H3 Officers of different racial and gender groups will show similar disparities in the rates at which they search drivers of different demographic profiles.
H5. Race effects will be stronger among male drivers than female drivers.
H8. Search rates will increase in an accelerating manner as the combination of driver, officer, and stop characteristics includes more “targeted” elements.
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

7. Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?
Data and Approach
Data from city of Charlotte, NC from 2016 and 2017, from the city’s Open Data Portal
Approximately 88,000 traffic stops: all stops conducted by the CMPD in that time period.
Average search rate is 4.41%.
Compare averages for different groups.
Logistic regressions with all possible controls.
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

8. Results: Simple search rate comparisons
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

9. Search Rate Comparisons (cont.)
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

10. Search Rates are higher in low income areas
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

11. Search rates increase geometrically with more targeted characteristics
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

12. Results: Logistic Regressions
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

13. White and black male officers compared
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

14. Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?
Conclusions
Driver, officer, stop characteristics matter
Officer characteristics are equally predictive as driver characteristics
Perhaps the real explanation of who gets searched is not so much, who is driving, but who is searching…
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?

15. Questions, comments welcome Frankb@unc.edu
Thank you
Questions, comments welcome
Who Gets Searched after a Traffic Stop?