Suspicion in Numbers
Pretextual Traffic Stops of Young Black Men Traveling Together
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24238914 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lance Hannon, Molly Biddle |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2026-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Race and Social Problems (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1867-1748 • E-ISSN: 1867-1756 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s12552-026-09530-z |
| OpenAlex | W7222948709 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
This study explores whether police officers are especially likely to stop and investigate young Black males traveling in parties of two or more. Our analysis is guided by social psychological theory and research suggesting that racial stereotypes about criminality are applied with greater intensity to Black people encountered in groups. Investigatory stop data for Philadelphia indicate that relative to young White men, young Black men are about five times more likely to be pulled over in the company of other young men of the same race ( n = 41,633). Using the veil-of-darkness test, we show that this disparity cannot be easily explained by racial differences in motorist behavior (such as carpooling). Our analyses reveal that young Black men in groups experience a significantly elevated probability of being stopped for traffic violations when daylight visibility facilitates officer discernment of vehicle passengers from afar. Previous studies have left this dynamic unexplored, implicitly assuming that multi-occupant vehicle stops are equally distributed across racial categories and/or that having a lone young Black male driver would produce a ceiling effect in the level of disparate scrutiny and selective traffic enforcement. We find that while young Black males traveling alone are disadvantaged in inter-racial comparisons, intra-racially they are less likely to be targeted than young Black males in groups. Overall, our results suggest that beyond a present-versus-absent dichotomy, the presence of additional young Black men in a vehicle increases the likelihood of being selected for a pretextual traffic stop.
group travel · Racial profiling · selective enforcement · traffic offenses · young Black men · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Education Discipline and Inequality · Policing Practices and Perceptions
Pulled Over
Testing for Racial Profiling in Traffic Stops From Behind a Veil of Darkness
Daylight, race, gender, and age
Vehicle Stops and Group Position
Out-of-Place and In-Place Policing
Racial Biases in Officers’ Decisions to Frisk Are Amplified for Black People Stopped Among Groups Leading to Similar Biases in Searches, Arrests, and Use of Force
Black Criminal Stereotypes and Racial Profiling
Deadly Symbiosis
A group is more than the average of its parts
Individual–Group Discontinuity in Group–Individual Interactions
Stereotyping Online? Internet News, Social Media, and the Racial Typification of Crime
Seeing Disorder
Media Construction of Crime Revisited
Pulling back the veil of darkness
Driving While Black
Racial Typification of Crime and Support for Punitive Measures
A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States
The White Space
Neighborhood Residence and Assessments of Racial Profiling Using Census Data
Inequality without Groups
Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime
| Highly cited | No |
|---|