An Evaluation of an Observational Benchmark Used in Assessing Disproportionality in Police Traffic Stops: A Research Note

Abstract

Researchers use observational benchmarks to assess racial disproportionality in police traffic stops. To date, there has been a deficiency of empirical research evaluating the effectiveness of observational benchmarks across time-of-day and in comparison to census data. This article is a research note that reports the findings from analyses evaluating relative accuracy of daytime roadside observations in comparison with nighttime observations. Results indicate that daytime observations are more valid than nighttime observations and that daytime benchmarks if formed from small localized geographical areas are similar to residential census population data. The implications of these findings are discussed.