Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Geography of Stop and Frisk in Nine U.S. Cities

University Of Miami, Coral Gables FL

Investigators

Abstract

Police agencies across the United States employ stop and frisk practices as part of a proactive crime-fighting strategy. These tactics are criticized because they disproportionately implicate Black and Latinx individuals, tend to be concentrated in poor neighborhoods of color, and sometimes involve the detainment of people who are never arrested. However, existing social science scholarship does not adequately address why some neighborhoods experience more stop and frisk activity than others. Moreover, it fails to consider the ways that geographic variation in proactive policing are related to legal decision-making. This is an important question because legal scholars argue that developments in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence have resulted in a threshold for conducting stops that is lower in poor, minority neighborhoods than in Whiter, more affluent areas. The present research seeks to address these gaps by: (1) examining which social processes generate geographic variation in stop and frisk across census tracts and identifying characteristics of "surveillance hotspots," and (2) investigating whether the legal standards for justifying stops are relaxed in perceived "high-crime" areas. This study will broaden understanding of inequality in the criminal justice system by exploring the roots of these inequalities. To achieve these aims, the researcher combines three types of data to analyze these relationships, including: (1) pedestrian stop and frisk incidents, (2) crime incidents, and (3) demographic data from the Census and American Community Survey. Stage one will utilize data from nine cities across the United States (Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.) to identify the neighborhood characteristics and social processes associated with "surveillance hotspots"--those areas that experience exceptionally high concentrations of stop and frisk activity. Analyses for this stage consist of estimating fixed-effects ordinary least squares and geographically weighted regression models. The second stage draws on detailed information about the bases for pedestrian stops in two cities (Chicago and New York City) to evaluate whether the legal thresholds for conducting stops systematically varies across census tracts. Analyses for stage two involve estimating spatial regression models to evaluate neighborhood-level variation in legal thresholds for making stops by analyzing the relationships between neighborhood marginality, reasonable suspicion justifications, and arrest rates. The findings from this study will shed light on the macro-level social processes that lead to inequitable policing and could be utilized by law enforcement agencies to develop practices that enhance police-community relations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.