Using Hit Rate Tests to Test for Racial Bias in Law Enforcement: Vehicle Searches in Wichita
|
NBER Working Paper No. 10947
Issued in December 2004
NBER Program(s): LS LE
This paper considers the use of outcomes-based tests for detecting racial bias in the context of police searches of motor vehicles. It shows that the test proposed in Knowles, Persico and Todd (2001) can also be applied in a more general environment where police officers are heterogenous in their tastes for discrimination and in their costs of search and motorists are heterogeneous in their benefits and costs from criminal behavior. We characterize the police and motorist decision problems in a game theoretic framework and establish properties of the equilibrium. We also extend the model to the case where drivers' characteristics are mutable in the sense that drivers can adapt some of their characteristics to reduce the probability of being monitored. After developing the theory that justifies the application of outcomes-based tests, we apply the tests to data on police searches of motor vehicles gathered by the Wichita Police deparment. The empirical findings are consistent with the notion that police in Wichita choose their search strategies to maximize successful searches, and not out of racial bias.
This paper is available as PDF (364 K) or via email.
Machine-readable bibliographic record -
MARC,
RIS,
BibTeX
|
|
|
About
Support
The research activities of the NBER are funded by grants from federal research agencies, by private foundations, and by generous donations from our corporate associates and from private individuals. The NBER is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. For information on supporting the NBER, please contact:
Mr. Denis Healy, Director of Development
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-5398
ph: 617-868-3900
email: dhealy@nber.org
Close