RT Article
T1 Effect of racial misclassification in police data on estimates of racial disparities
JF Criminology
VO 61
IS 2
SP 295
OP 315
A1 Laniyonu, Ayobami
A2 Donahue, Samuel T.
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1869503252
AB Research on race and policing increasingly draws upon data collected by police officers to estimate racial disparities in police contact. Many of these data sets, however, rely on officer perception of a stopped person's race, which may be inconsistent with how those individuals self-identify. Furthermore, researchers frequently benchmark contact data where race is perceived by police officers against census and survey data where race is self-identified. We argue that discordance between how individuals self-identify and how they are classified by officers can bias estimates of racial disparities. Using a unique data set, which allows us to compare officers’ racial classification of stopped persons with those same persons’ racial self-identification, we characterize rates of racial misclassification in administrative police records. We find evidence of racial misclassification in police records, especially among Hispanic and Asians/Pacific Islanders. We find that officer classification of Hispanics as (non-Hispanic) White is the most common form of racial misclassification in our sample and that its substantive consequences are significant. Specifically, we find that officer classification of Hispanics as White may lead analysts to incorrectly conclude that Hispanics are no more likely than Whites to be cited by police.
NO Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 312-315
K1 police citations
K1 Race
K1 racial identification
K1 racial misclassification
K1 risk ratios
DO 10.1111/1745-9125.12329