W15 - Legewie. Racial Profiling and Use of Force in Police Stops

Racial profiling refers to discriminatory practices by law enforcement, using a person’s race or ethnicity to determine whether to engage in enforcement actions.
It brings about controversies related to human rights violations and affects trust within communities.

The paper posits that racial bias in police force usage escalates after significant events, such as shootings of police officers by suspects of specific racial backgrounds.
The study employs data from 3.9 million pedestrian stops in New York City to analyze trends in the use of police force across different racial groups.

Fatal shootings of police officers by black suspects increased the use of force against blacks significantly in the days following the incidents.
- Example: After a 2007 incident, the use of force against blacks surged by 16.0%, and for a 2011 incident, it increased by 13.3%.
The use of force against whites and Hispanics, however, remained unchanged, indicating a race-specific response.
The findings are supported by regression discontinuity designs, reaffirming the causal relation between police shootings and increased use of police force against minorities.

Ethnographic studies highlight the prevalence of aggressive policing in urban communities, particularly targeting young black men.
The legacy of the "stop, question, and frisk" (SQF) policy in NYC serves as a reference point for understanding systemic racial bias in policing and community interactions.

The research suggests that discrimination is not static but is influenced by temporal sequences of significant events which provoke intergroup conflicts and foreground racial stereotypes.
Events such as officer shootings evoke heightened internal cohesion within police departments and amplify perceptions of threat among officers, leading to increased forceful actions against minority groups.

This quasi-experimental study analyzes the effect of four specific violent acts against police officers and their impact on subsequent police interactions with different races.
A matching methodology was used to create a counterfactual scenario to compare police stops before and after the events.

Logistic regression models assess the relationship between incidents of violence against officers and increased use of force against blacks.
The analysis identifies patterns consistent with the minority threat hypothesis, where the historical context of racial dynamics informs current policing practices.

The findings suggest significant societal consequences that extend beyond immediate police interactions; violent events can have cascading effects throughout various societal dimensions, affecting institutions like education and housing.
Racial bias is framed not just as a law enforcement issue but as a widespread societal concern triggered by events.

The study calls for further exploration into the long-term effects of repeated exposure to racially charged events on police practices and community relations.
Emphasis is also placed on estimating the cumulative effect of discrimination influenced by a steady stream of racially tense events.