The geography of (un)reasonable suspicion
Rethinking causes of racial disparities in police stops
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6089763 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rachel Lautenschlager (0000-0003-2588-3535, Department of Sociology & Criminology University of Denver Denver Colorado USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 45-62 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0265-8240 • E-ISSN: 1467-9930 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/lapo.12230 |
| OpenAlex | W4386864688 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 53 |
In Illinois vs. Wardlow (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presence in a “high‐crime” area is one factor that police can consider when establishing reasonable suspicion to justify a Terry stop. Some legal scholars argue that through this decision the Court propagated inequity in police stops by setting a lower evidentiary standard for establishing reasonable suspicion in neighborhoods with greater numbers Black residents, which are more likely than White neighborhoods to be considered crime hot spots. To assess these claims, I analyze pedestrian stop data from the Chicago Police Department for the years 2016 and 2017. Using spatial regression techniques, I evaluate relationships between neighborhood measures of Black disadvantage, police stop justifications, and “hit rates” of stops. The results suggest that reasonable suspicion is uniquely constructed in disadvantaged Black neighborhoods but that this does not result in significantly different enforcement rates. Based on these results, I argue that policing scholars must reconsider sources of inequity in policing and, in particular, consider the role of the law in shaping these outcomes
Criminology · Disadvantage · Disadvantaged · Law enforcement · Police department · Political science · Race (biology · Racial profiling · Reasonable suspicion · Sociology · Supreme court · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Gender Studies · Gun Ownership and Violence Research · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions
The Consequences of Being an Object of Suspicion
The Effect of Police Contact
Racial Threat, Suspicion, and Police Behavior
The Consequences of Race for Police Officers' Responses to Criminal Suspects
Pot as Pretext
Race and place
Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma
Criminality and legal order
Critical Race Theory
Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations
Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research
Race Relations
Police worldviews, unconscious bias, and their potential to contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in New York Police Department (Nypd) stops for reason of “furtive movement”
Urban Revitalization and the Policing of Racial Territoriality
Street Stops and Broken Windows
The Reverse Racism Effect
Suspect Searches
Collateral Damage
Seeing Disorder
Criminal Justice in America
Aggressive Policing and the Mental Health of Young Urban Men
Conflict theory and racial profiling
Stop-and-frisk in New York City
Assessing the racial aspects of police force using the implicit- and counter-bias perspectives
De-policing and crime in the wake of Ferguson
The World Is Not Black and White
Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches
Police Suspicion and Discretionary Decision Making During Citizen Stops
Driving While Black
The New Jim Crow
Police Discretion
Seeing Black
Across the thin blue line
Crack Pipes and Policing
Critical Race Theory and Empirical Sociology
Living under surveillance
The Penology of Racial Innocence
Prejudice in Police Profiling
Organizational Practice and Neighborhood Context of Racial Inequality in Police Use-of-Force
The Endogeneity of Legal Regulation
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |