A Few Bad Apples? Racial Bias in Policing | Zendy

Felipe Goncalves | Zendy; Steven Mello | Zendy

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A Few Bad Apples? Racial Bias in Policing

Author(s) -

Felipe Goncalves,

Steven Mello

Publication year - 2021

Publication title -

american economic review

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 16.936

H-Index - 297

eISSN - 1944-7981

pISSN - 0002-8282

DOI - 10.1257/aer.20181607

Subject(s) - officer , race (biology) , racism , white (mutation) , estimation , aggregate (composite) , criminology , economics , demographic economics , political science , sociology , law , management , gender studies , biochemistry , chemistry , materials science , composite material , gene

We estimate the degree to which individual police officers practice racial discrimination. Using a bunching estimation design and data from the Florida Highway Patrol, we show that minorities are less likely to receive a discount on their speeding tickets than White drivers. Disaggregating this difference to the individual police officer, we estimate that 42 percent of officers practice discrimination. We then apply our officer- level discrimination measures to various policy-relevant questions in the literature. In particular, reassigning officers across locations based on their lenience can effectively reduce the aggregate disparity in treatment (JEL H76, J15, K42)

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