| Abstrakt: |
Claims of racial profiling often arise with respect to an officer's decision to search a vehicle for contraband. In response to concerns over profiling, law enforcement agencies have begun to require traffic officers to record the race/ethnicity of motorists they stop and those they search. Initial data collected by the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP), like that of most other state police agencies, showed that minority drivers were more likely than white drivers to have their vehicles searched, but that minority motorists were less likely to be found with contraband. The purpose of this research was to examine the post-stop police/motorist interactions in order to determine whether racial/ethnic minority drivers were asked more questions during the traffic stop, increasing their likelihood of a vehicle search. The data were obtained through systematic observation of 200 randomly selected video/audio recorded traffic stop encounters by Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) road troopers. Minority motorists were asked more questions, thus increasing their search likelihood, but only when stopped by officers with a high stop/search ratio. An additional, unexpected indirect race/ethnicity effect on search likelihood was found, being asked into the squad car, but only for officers with a low stop/search ratio. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
