Racial Bias in Police Investigations

By Jeremy West

Nonrandom selection into police encounters typically complicates evaluations of law enforcement discrimination. This study overcomes selection concerns by examining automobile crash investigations, for which officer dispatch is demonstrably independent of drivers’ race. I find State Police officers issue significantly more traffic citations to drivers whose race differs from their own. This bias is evident for both moving and nonmoving violations, the latter indicating a preference for discriminatory leniency towards same-race individuals. I show this treatment is unmitigated by socioeconomic factors: officers cite other-race drivers more frequently regardless of their age, gender, vehicle value, or characteristics of the local community.

Santa Cruz, CA: Economics Department, University of California at Santa Cruz, 2018. 37p.