Suspicious
Driving While Broke: The Role of Class Signals in Police Discretion
Jedidiah Knode, Travis Carter & Scott Wolfe
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is ongoing debate over the latitude of discretion police officers have when conducting stops and searches. While necessary due to resource limitations and need for individualized justice, discretion involves subjective characteristics of suspicion formation, such as race and ethnicity, which could perpetuate disparities in traffic enforcement. Research has yet to explore other marginalizing characteristics of suspicion formation, such as drivers’ social class. This study draws on over 550,000 stops conducted by a large state police agency in 2022 and 2023 to explore how vehicle values serve as class signals influencing officers’ discretion. We found disparities, whereby lower value vehicles were more likely to be searched than higher value vehicles after matching based on when, where, and under what circumstances stops occurred. However, searches of lower value vehicles were less likely to result in contraband recovery. Our findings highlight potential avenues for officer training and research analyzing inequalities in policing.
Purchasing privilege? How status cues affect police suspicion in routine traffic stops
Frank Baumgartner, Colin Case & Will Spillman
Politics, Groups, and Identities, forthcoming
Abstract:
A police officer’s decision to search a driver’s car during a routine traffic stop is based on many variables and indicates that the officer views the driver with suspicion. In this paper, we ask whether driving a luxury-brand car reduces police suspicion during a traffic stop. We find significant reductions in rates of search for minority drivers of luxury cars, though these benefits fade away as the car grows older. We further explore the interactions between personal identity and vehicle type and find powerful effects associated with whether the vehicle indicates occupational status. Our study is based on more than 10 million traffic stops conducted by the Texas Highway Patrol. These findings add status cues to the long list of factors that appear to influence how police treat drivers during routine traffic stops.
Locked up and awaiting trial: Testing the criminogenic and punitive effects of spending a week or more in pretrial detention
Matthew DeMichele, Ian Silver & Ryan Labrecque
Criminology & Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study provides a rigorous assessment of the public safety benefits of pretrial detention by estimating the criminogenic and punitive effects of spending at least 1 week in pretrial detention across three jail systems in two states. We use a doubly robust difference-in-differences design to show that pretrial detention increases the odds for someone to miss a court appearance or be arrested by roughly 50% and increases the odds of convictions by 36%. This evidence was support by a series of supplemental analyses demonstrating that spending more than 1 day and spending more than 3 days in pretrial detention increased the odds of negative pretrial outcomes compared to someone who was booked and released from jail. The findings of this study provide evidence that pretrial detention can be counterproductive to public safety in that it leads to increased likelihood that individuals will miss court and be arrested for new crimes.
Criminal records versus rehabilitation and expungement: A randomised controlled trial
Matthew Bland, Barak Ariel & Sumit Kumar
Journal of Experimental Criminology, September 2024, Pages 717–741
Methods: We use a pretest–posttest control group design with a cohort of 341 low-harm offenders randomly assigned to either a simple, unconditional, caution or a 16-week rehabilitation treatment programme (after which the criminal record was automatically expunged). New crimes and a measure of harm were used as outcome variables.
Results: Intention-to-treat analysis shows no significant difference in prevalence, crime count or crime harm. Factoring in those individuals who actually completed the programme changes this story. An instrumental variables analysis used to adjust for treatment compliance suggests that the offer to expunge the criminal record following participation in rehabilitation programmes reduces both crime count and crime harm.
Direct incentives may increase employment of people with criminal records
Shawn Bushway & Justin Pickett
Criminology & Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although society benefits when people with criminal records are employed, employers are reluctant to hire them. Can we diminish this reluctance with direct incentives that reduce the cost of employing record-holders or that compensate for the associated risk? If so, will the beneficial effects of incentives emerge under traditional hiring, where job applicants disclose criminal history information at the application stage, and under Ban-the-Box, where they do not? To answer these questions, we conducted two preregistered experiments with a national sample of hiring decision-makers (n = 1,000). The first was a conjoint analysis where participants chose between applicants who randomly varied on eight attributes, including criminal record (n = 13,998 choices). It corresponded to traditional hiring, where applicants’ criminal records are available at the outset. The second experiment involved a series of picture-based factorial vignettes depicting tentatively hired employees later discovered to have records (n = 3,989 decisions). It approximated Ban-the-Box. In both experiments, a $2,400 tax credit and $25,000 insurance against losses from employee dishonesty reduced participants’ reluctance to hire record-holders. Rehabilitation certificates also had beneficial effects under Ban-the-Box.
If the face fits: Predicting future promotions from police cadets’ facial traits
Ian Adams et al.
Journal of Experimental Criminology, September 2024, Pages 937–972
Methods: Using archival police academy photographs, we use a two-phase experiment to evaluate the impact of facial traits on future promotional success. First, respondents (n = 507) view randomly selected photographs of cadets (observations = 15,669) and evaluate them for facial traits and perceived leadership ability. Second, respondents are presented with random dyads of differentially promoted recruits, and choose one based on the highest perceived leadership ability. We compare those leadership evaluations to the subsequent promotional success of the cadets featured in the photographs (observations = 5739). We employ Bayesian multilevel modeling throughout both phases.
Results: Facial traits are the primary driver of subject perceptions of leadership ability, and those perceptions successfully predict promotional success later in the cadets’ careers. When selecting for leadership potential based on police cadet photographs, respondents predict correct promotional choices at levels well above chance as measured by an AUC score of .70. Further, respondents’ evaluations successfully discriminate both between no promotion and lieutenant promotion, and sergeant versus lieutenant promotions.
Association of a novel restrictive housing diversion program with rates of mental health and self-injury in prison
Molly Remch et al.
American Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Restrictive housing for control purposes (RHCP, a form of solitary confinement) is used in prisons in response to disruptive behaviors, including violence. North Carolina prisons introduced the rehabilitative diversion unit (RDU) in 2016 as an alternative to and step-down from RHCP. We compared rates of psychiatric treatment and self-injury among men enrolled in the RDU and men eligible for the RDU but placed in RHCP. We used Poisson regression to calculate rate ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for these outcomes, using inverse probability of treatment weights to adjust for confounders. The cohort included 1,225 men in the RDU group and 3,059 in the RHCP group. In RHCP, the adjusted psychiatric treatment rate was 2.6 times (95% CI: 1.8, 3.8) and the adjusted self-injury incident rate was 1.2 times (95% CI: 0.6, 2.8) that in RDU. Nearly all self-injury incidents in RDU occurred during “non-participating time” (i.e., in a restrictive housing setting and not actively participating in RDU). After excluding non-participating time from the RDU group’s person time, the adjusted RR for self-injury incidents was 23.5 (95% CI: 8.6, 64.2). These results further knowledge of potential benefits of diversion from restrictive housing. Continued development, implementation, and evaluation is needed.
An audit study of barriers to mental health treatment for wrongly incarcerated people
Jeff Kukucka, Kateryn Reyes-Fuentes & Christina Dardis
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Method: We emailed 752 therapists across the United States while posing as a man seeking therapy for the mental health symptoms most commonly reported by exonerees. By random assignment, this help seeker had been either incarcerated and paroled, wrongly incarcerated and exonerated, or working as a first responder (control). For each email, we noted whether the therapist replied and, if so, the speed and length of the reply. We also content analyzed all replies for predetermined themes, including willingness to meet.
Results: Overall, therapists replied less often to exonerees (50.6%) than to first responders (62.9%) or parolees (61.1%), who did not differ (V = .11). Therapists’ replies also differed in their willingness to meet (V = .13), such that inquiries from first responders would more often result in a meeting with a therapist (31.7%) compared with inquiries from exonerees (19.6%) or parolees (21.0%).
Estimated effect of fee repeal on family financial stress and juvenile probation outcomes
Jaclyn Chambers et al.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, forthcoming
Abstract:
Juvenile justice agencies often impose fees on families to offset the cost of their child’s legal representation, detention, and supervision. Increasingly, advocates are calling for fees to be repealed to mitigate the stress and harm of monetary sanctions. But little is known about the impact of fee repeal on (a) the financial burden that families carry (overall and given a potential compensatory increase in other sanctions like fines), (b) youths’ length of probation, and (c) the likelihood that youth will reoffend in the future. In this study, we address these questions by applying a rigorous causal inference approach (targeted maximum likelihood estimation) to data on 2,401 youth placed on probation before and after fee repeal in an urban county. Results provide no evidence that fee repeal increased fines or other monetary sanctions. Families’ estimated likelihood of experiencing any monetary sanction was 22.2% lower postrepeal compared to prerepeal -- and the total amount of sanctions was reduced by $1,583 (or 70%). Youths’ estimated length of probation was over 4 months shorter postrepeal compared to prerepeal (133 days). However, there was no significant difference in youths’ likelihood of rearrest over a 2-year follow-up period. Results suggest that fee repeal is a powerful policy lever for reducing financial stress on families and reducing children’s terms of probation -- but does not prevent rearrest.
Do Investment and Code Enforcement Mitigate the Criminogenic Effects of Commercial Places on City Streets?
Arthur Acolin, Marie Skubak Tillyer & Rebecca Walter
Urban Affairs Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Communities and their residents need access to commercial places that provide core goods and services (e.g., retail stores, banks, grocery stores, and restaurants). These place types, however, are often associated with higher levels of crime, though there is within-place type variability. This study explores whether investment in the form of building permits and public regulation in the form of code enforcement moderates the criminogenic effects of commercial places on city streets. Using data from a diverse set of U.S. cities, we estimate the relationship between commercial places and crime on street segments over time, and the extent to which building permits and code enforcement moderate the relationships. The findings indicate that commercial places are positively associated with crime on street segments, while building permits and code enforcement are negatively associated with crime. Moreover, building permits significantly temper the criminogenic effects of commercial places. The moderating effect of code enforcement on the relationship between commercial places and crime, however, is inconsistent across cities and crime types. We discuss the implications for community and economic development and public safety.