Suspect Citizens
What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race
Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, and Kelsey Shoub
Cambridge University Press, 2018
Winner, C. Herman Pritchett Best Book Award from the APSA Organized Section on Law and Courts, 2019
Useful Links
Links to web sites with data we used throughout the book:
North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Traffic Stop Statistics
Links to multi-media sites with more information about cases discussed in the book:
Link to the story and video of Ms. Ayanna Reid Cruver, whose case we discussed in Chapter 10.
Link to an investigation with several videos of seeming examples of racial profiling, from the Austin American Statesman, discussed in Chapter 10.
Link to the story of John Hunt, who was terrified after a traffic stop in North Carolina, discussed in Chapter 10.
See coverage of the traffic stop and case against NBA player Mike Scott, which led to charges being dropped and an exposure of a pattern and practice of false arrest by a small Georgia sheriff's department, discussed in Chapter 10.
See a collection of videos of teenagers in Chicago talking about their encounters with the police. Courtesy of the Invisible Institute.
Events related to our book after publication:
Judges toss Charlotte drug case after ‘flagrantly unconstitutional’ police traffic search, Charlotte Observer, by Michael Gordon and Gavin Off, July 10, 2020
Oregon Supreme Court, 365 Or 695 (S066119) State v. Arreola-Botello, November 15, 2019, stating that a police officer may not conduct a search following a traffic stop if that search is unrelated to the purpose of the original stop.
Articles that extend our analyses to other states or databases:
Shoub, Kelsey, Leah Christiani, Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, and Kevin Roach. 2020 Fines, Fees, and Disparities: The Link between Municipal Reliance on Fines and Racial Disparities in Policing. Policy Studies Journal, forthcoming. Article text; Appendix; replication files.
- Related Op-Ed: Ten Years of Study and the Protesters are Right. What traffic stops tell us about racial bias in policing. Medium.com/3streams, June 25, 2020 (Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani, Derek A. Epp, Kelsey Shoub, and Kevin Roach)
Baumgartner, Frank R., Kate Bell, Luke Beyer, Tara Boldrin, Libby Doyle, Lindsey Govan, Jack Halpert, Jackson Hicks, Katherine Kyriakoudes, Cat Lee, Mackenzie Leger, Sarah McAdon, Sarah Michalak, Caroline Murphy, Eyan Neal, Olivia O’Malley, Emily Payne, Audrey Sapirstein, Sally Stanley, and Kathryn Thacker. 2020. Intersectional Encounters: Representative Bureaucracy and the Routine Traffic Stop. Policy Studies Journal, early view. Article text; Appendix; replication files.
Epp, Derek A., and Macey Erhardt. 2020. The use and effectiveness of investigative police stops. Politics, Groups, and Identities. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2020.1724160
Shoub, Kelsey, Derek A. Epp, Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani, and Kevin Roach. 2020. Race, Place, and Context: The Persistence of Race Effects in Traffic Stop Outcomes. Journal of Race and Ethnic Politics, forthcoming. Article text; Appendix; replication data; replication do-file.
Fliss, Mike, Frank R. Baumgartner, Paul Delamater, Steve Marshall, Charles Poole, and Whitney Robinson. 2020. Re-Prioritizing Traffic Stops to Reduce Motor Vehicle Crash Outcomes and Racial Disparities. Injury Epidemiology forthcoming.
Baumgartner, Frank R., Leah Christiani, Derek A. Epp, Kevin Roach, and Kelsey Shoub. 2017. Racial Disparities in Traffic Stop Outcomes. Duke Forum for Law and Social Change 9: 21-53. Click here for a copy of the spreadsheet showing traffic stop statistics for over 600 yearly police agency results throughout the country, on which our study is based.
Baumgartner, Frank R., Derek A. Epp, Kelsey Shoub, and Bayard Love. 2017. Targeting Young Men of Color for Search and Arrest during Traffic Stops: Evidence from North Carolina, 2002-2013. Politics, Groups, and Identities 5, 1: 107-131.
(This page was last updated August 6, 2020.)