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ABSTRACT
North Carolina mandated the first collection of demographic data on all traffic stops during a surge of attention to the phenomenon of “driving while black” in the late 1990s. Based on analysis of over 18 million traffic stops, we show dramatic disparities in the rates at which black drivers, particularly young males, are searched and arrested as compared to similarly situated whites, women, or older drivers. Further, the degree of racial disparity is growing over time. Finally, the rate at which searches lead to the discovery of contraband is consistently lower for blacks than for whites, providing strong evidence that the empirical disparities we uncover are in fact evidence of racial bias. The findings are robust to a variety of statistical specifications and consistent with findings in other jurisdictions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The law exempts only police departments in towns with fewer than 10,000 population. The State Highway Patrol has been subject to the law since 1 January 2000, but it was phased in for other agencies in 2002.
2. Other outcomes that can result from a traffic stop include verbal or written warnings and “no enforcement action”. In concert with the Ferguson report, we focus on only citations, arrests, and searches because they are the most invasive and punitive of the possible outcomes.
3. The mathematics behind this calculation are straightforward: ((10/5)*100)−100.
4. For example, a study by Lange, Johnson, and Voas (Citation2005) of drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike found that speeders were more likely to be black and that patterns of police traffic stops accurately reflected the racial make-up of speeders, rather than the racial composition of the surrounding communities.