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Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us about Policing and Race. By Baumgartner Frank R., Epp Derek A., and Shoub Kelsey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 292p. $99.99 cloth, $24.99 paper.
The relationship between local law enforcement and African American communities has been much in the news, spurred in part by cell-phone recordings of horrific police shootings and revelations about exploitive traffic fines in Ferguson, Missouri and other communities. “Driving while Black or Brown” names another problematic aspect of the relationship. Putting an end to the discrimination and disadvantage that Blacks and Latinos face when they confront police should be a national priority. Frank Baumgartner, Derek Epp, and Kelsey Schoub have undertaken an analysis that can help move us in the right direction.
The goal of these authors is to show, quite precisely, how racial discrimination occurs in that most routine aspect of local policing: traffic stops and arrests. These are the occasions when people form impressions about police fairness and professionalism. Police–citizen interactions, especially when negative, also shape attitudes about the government’s commitment to fair treatment. As these authors argue, “Traffic stops are the epicenter of police-citizen interactions” (p. 5). That experience is racially skewed: whites are stopped less often and suffer fewer negative consequences than Blacks and Latinos. For middle-class white Americans, traffic stops might seem a small price to pay for safe driving conditions. For minorities, these stops tell a different story, one that casts them as suspicious residents in a white-controlled society.
The root of the problem appears to be that many traffic stops are conducted not to prevent accidents, but instead to prevent crimes. So-called investigative stops are becoming more frequent as law enforcement agencies embrace crime prevention as a core part of their work. Proactive traffic policing draws from the same theory as stop and frisk and broken windows policing. These proactive...