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When Whren Won't WorkThe Effects of a Diminished Capacity to Initiate a Pretextual Stop on Police Officer BehaviorWichita State University The diversity of statutes regulating vehicular traffic and the near certainty that motorists will commit a violation provide police officers with abundant opportunities to establish probable cause and thereby initiate a legally sound, albeit pretextual, traffic stop and subsequent search. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court (Whren v. United States) validated this common police practice. The scarcity of statutes regulating pedestrian traffic limits the opportunity for police officers to initiate similar stops within this enforcement context. This research compares vehicular and pedestrian stops within the framework of a racial profiling inquiry to determine whether this diminished capacity affects the racial disparity in stops, searches, and arrests. Black pedestrians are more likely to be stopped, searched, involved in incidents of physical resistance, and arrested than Black motorists. A diminished capacity to initiate a pretextual stop does not appear to affect the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in police-citizen contacts.
Key Words: racial profiling • pedestrian stops • race-based policing • walking while Black • pretextual stops
Police Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4,
351-370 (2007) |
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