In Proportion: Race, and Police Stop and Search

• NCJ Number: 208312
• Journal: British Journal of Criminology Volume: 44 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2004 Pages: 889-914
• Author(s): P. A. J. Waddington; Kevin Stenson; David Don
• Date Published: November 2004
• Length: 26 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This paper examines the view, expressed in Great Britain's Macpherson report (1999), that racial disproportionality in police stop-and-search is attributable to officers' selective targeting of minority groups.

Abstract

Doubts about this conclusion have been expressed in studies that have examined the various factors that influence police stop-and-search practices in public polices. Home Office researchers have shown, for example, that the population that frequents public places where police patrol has a different profile from that of the general population; and FitzGerald (1999) has questioned whether officers have as much discretion in stop-and-search decisions as is often assumed. In broadening such inquiries into the variables that influence police stop-and-search practices, the current study replicated the Home Office research and found that compared to the "available population" in public places, those stopped and searched were not disproportionately selected from minority groups. This study then considered the impact of visibility on the decision-making of police officers; this inquiry suggests how visibility provides an independent criterion against which to assess targeting for stop-and-search police decisions. Finally, the study explored the possibility that disproportionality in stop-and-search might stem indirectly from the ways in which officers focus their stop-and-search activity in particular places, at specific times, and toward certain categories of motor vehicles. The authors conclude that after considering the various factors that influence police stop-and-search decisions, there is little evidence to indicate that police officers in the jurisdictions studied have selectively targeted racial minorities. The primary research error in the analysis of police stop-and-search decisions has been to compare the racial proportion of those stopped to their racial proportion in the general population rather than their proportion in the "available population." 8 figures, 4 tables, and 59 references