Luxury brand cars, racial profiling, and citations: Testing the social conditioning model and illusory correlation

Abstract

Abstract This study considers the issue of racial profiling in traffic stop citations for young Hispanic male citizens (YHM), young Black male citizens (YBM), and young White male (YWM) citizens stopped while driving a luxury brand car in either majority white cities or majority Hispanic cities. The current study utilized two different datasets: the Illinois traffic stop data (2016–18) and the 2016 LEMAS. The authors used the social conditioning model and illusory correlation as a theoretical explanation for police officer decision-making. The current findings show evidence of racial profiling only for stops involving YHM drivers stopped in majority white cities while driving a luxury brand car for either a safety stop or an investigatory stop ending in a citation. No evidence of racial profiling was found for either YBM drivers stopped in majority white cities or for either YBM drivers or YWM drivers stopped in majority Hispanic cities.