The Ecology of Ethnorcial Specific Stops: Revisiting the Denominator Question in Light of Realistic Alernatives

• In Event: Stop and Frisk: Some Outstanding Questions

Abstract

More than fifteen years ago scholars called into question the appropriate benchmark or denominator indicator for modeling investigatory stop counts at the ecological level, so they could be converted into ethnoracial-specific stop rates. Nonetheless, in policy and research studies authors continue to use and defend a wide array of potential denominators. Ridgeway and MacDonald (2010) have raised questions about many benchmarks and proposed alternatives. But given data available to typical city agencies, the choice is typically between population, arrests, and arrests for specific crime subsets. This paper reviews the policy and analytic pros and cons of three potential ethnoracial ecological denominators: population, all arrests, and violent crime arrests. Questions of temporal and spatial scaling merit consideration as well. Illustrative results from a major city in the U.S. may be included.

Author

• Lallen T. Johnson, Drexel University