Cincinnati Police Department Traffic Stops
Applying RAND's Framework to Analyze Racial Disparities
ResearchPublished Sep 25, 2009
Applying RAND's Framework to Analyze Racial Disparities
ResearchPublished Sep 25, 2009
In 2002, the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD), through a collaborative agreement, joined with other organizations to improve police-community relations. As a part of this agreement, Cincinnati asked RAND to evaluate progress toward achieving the agreement's goals. This monograph focuses on three assessments that evaluate whether data on traffic stops exhibit evidence of racial profiling: (1) an assessment of whether there is a department-wide pattern of bias against black drivers in the decision to stop a vehicle, (2) an assessment of the fraction of CPD officers who disproportionately stop black drivers compared to other officers patrolling the same neighborhoods at the same time, and (3) an assessment of racial biases in post-stop outcomes, including stop duration, citation rates, and search rates. RAND has developed a framework for conducting each of these assessments, and this monograph describes the associated methodology in detail. The framework removes the effect of other plausible explanations for racial differences, particularly adjustments for when, where, and why stops occur, to isolate race's effect from that of other factors on the decision to stop, cite, and search vehicles. In addition to providing an analysis of Cincinnati's traffic stops for 2008, the framework offers direction for Cincinnati and other communities concerned about racial profiling to assess their traffic-stop data.
The research described in this report was sponsored by the City of Cincinnati and was conducted under the auspices of the RAND Center on Quality Policing within the Safety and Justice Program of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment (ISE).
This publication is part of the RAND monograph series. RAND monographs were products of RAND from 2003 to 2011 that presented major research findings that addressed the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND monographs were subjected to rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.
This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.