State Data and the Production of Quantitative Knowledge: Police Stop Data in the U.S. and France

• In Event: Theorizing State Power: Comparative Studies of Policing, Punishment, and Penal Logic

Abstract

State administrative data are increasingly used to create quantitative knowledge about bureaucratic behavior and social inequality. Using the case of police stop data in the U.S. and France, this paper theorizes the critical role administrative data play in shaping knowledge, sometimes in unexpected ways. Based on 195 interviews with bureaucrats, researchers, journalists, and activists in the U.S. and France, I show how administrative data about police stops influence the development of knowledge about these practices. In the U.S., police stop microdata have influenced policy and generated extensive research but have limited the questions researchers ask. By contrast, the lack of administrative stop data in France has led external actors to generate their own data via surveys and observations. While this has in some ways hampered research on police stops, it has empowered non-police actors to address topics like national origin and race that are typically invisible in official French data.

Author

• Michael Zanger-Tishler, Harvard University