Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops: An Examination of Research Approaches and Findings in the War on Drugs

Abstract

This article is a review of some of the main research approaches to understanding racial profiling as it manifests in the traffic stop. It orients the emergence of racial profiling as a product of the war on drugs philosophy guiding law enforcement in the late 20th century and discusses how the contemporary nature of racial profiling has origins in a long history of racialized policing in the United States. Theoretical and methodological approaches to the issue, particularly from mainstream criminologists, focus on quantitative assessment of exposure to law enforcement agents and rational choice-based arguments that it makes sense to target certain groups based on the hue of the criminal justice system. More critical approaches examined within complicate this notion by contextualizing racial profiling in contemporary times as a mere manifestation of historical efforts by the state to marginalize communities of color.