‘Driving while black’ (or female) as a function of policing while white (or male)

ABSTRACT Existing research on distributional concerns arising out of the police-initiated traffic stop context and its outcomes typically focuses on drivers’ race and gender. Broadening this research focus permits more granular analyses of how key police officer and driver pairings interact. Emerging research implies that if Black and non-white drivers are disadvantaged in traffic stop outcomes owing to racial animus, this disadvantage should be especially acute when the police officer is white. Likewise, if gender stereotypes contribute an advantage to female drivers, this advantage should be particularly evident when the officer is male. To assess these hypotheses, this study analyzes data from the 2015 Police-Public Contact Survey (‘PPCS’) and estimates logit models to examine the impact of key police officer and driver race and gender pairings on police-initiated traffic stop outcomes. Despite focusing on police/driver race and gender pairings where expectations for evidence of systematic bias are at their highest, results from this study indicate that none of the three pairings achieves statistical significance. The findings emphasize that prevailing conventional wisdoms regarding key police/driver race and gender pairings in the police-initiated traffic stop context do not find direct empirical support from the null results in this study.