Title
Suspect citizens : what 20 million traffic stops tell us about policing and race / Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, Kelsey Shoub.
ISBN
9781108454049 (paperback)
1108454046 (paperback)
9781108429313 (hardcover)
1108429319 (hardcover)
Published
Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Language
English
Description
xv, 277 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Call Number
HV7936.R3 B38 2018
Dewey Decimal Classification
363.23089/00973
Summary
"Supect Citizens offers the most comprehensive look to date at the most common form of police-citizen interactions, the routine traffic stop. Throughout the war on crime, police agencies have used traffic stops to search drivers suspected of carrying contraband. From the beginning, police agencies made it clear that very large numbers of police stops would have to occur before an officer might interdict a significant drug shipment. Unstated in that calculation was that many Americans would be subjected to police investigations so that a small number of high-level offenders might be found. The key element in this strategy, which kept it hidden from widespread public scrutiny, was that middle-class white Americans were largely exempt from its consequences. Tracking these police practices down to the officer level, Suspect Citizens documents the extreme rarity of drug busts and reveals sustained and troubling disparities in how racial groups are treated"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Suspect citizens: fighting the war on crime with traffic stops
A legislative mandate to address concerns about racial profiling
Who gets stopped?
What happens after a stop?
Finding contraband
Search and arrest patterns by officer and agency
Profiling Hispanics, profiling blacks
Black political power and disparities in policing
Reforms that reduce alienation and enhance community safety
Conclusions.