Explaining the Spatial Patterning of Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops Requires a Structural Perspective: Further Reflections on Stelter et al. (2022) and Ekstrom et al. (2022)

Recent studies have made clear that Black drivers in the US are more likely to be stopped by police than White drivers, and that the size of the disparity varies widely from one place to another. Now, two research teams have independently analyzed the same large data sets to investigate the role of racial bias in explaining the geographical patterning of racial disparities. The two teams’ findings are illuminating, both in their agreements, and in their differences. First, the agreements. Both Stelter and colleagues (hereafter, Stelter) and Ekstrom and colleagues (hereafter, Ekstrom) find that counties with higher average levels of racial bias tend to have larger racial disparities in traffic stops. Both teams find that the association is significant for both explicitly measured and implicitly measured racial bias. And, both teams find that disparities are higher in counties with larger White populations. As both papers note in different ways, these county-wide associations are unlikely to be explained by “a few bad apples” responsible for stopping Black motorists. Instead, they call for explanations at the level of communities. But what, exactly, explains these effects?