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European Journal of Law and Economics

, Volume 41, Issue 1, pp 65–83 | Cite as

Frisky business: race, gender and police activity during traffic stops

  • Matt E. RyanEmail author
Article
First Online:

Abstract

Since the United States Supreme Court laid the foundation for “stop-and-frisk” activity by police departments, a substantial amount of research has explored the behavior of police departments, particularly with respect to race. But previous work rarely focuses on the individual’s probability of receiving a frisk. By exploiting a traffic stop-level dataset from the Pittsburgh Police Department, the marginal effects of assorted driver characteristics are estimated. While the broad characterization of African-American drivers being more likely to receive a frisk remains accurate, several related factors are identified that create a more nuanced picture of a driver’s probability of being frisked. The interaction of the gender of the driver, the time of day of the traffic stop, and the existence of passengers in the stopped vehicle with the race of the driver all impact the probability of receiving a frisk.

Keywords

Frisking Race Traffic stops Gender 

JEL Classification

K00 K42 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Duquesne UniversityPittsburghUSA

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