Prior research has documented a robust relationship between race and perceptions of traffic stops (Lundman and Kaufman, 2003; Epp et al., 2014; Flexon et al., 2019). This analysis builds on the existing literature by examining whether the situational context of the stop moderates this relationship, thereby intensifying negative perceptions of traffic stops among Black and Hispanic drivers.
This study uses several logistic regression models to identify which situational factors influenced whether a driver perceived the police as having a legitimate reason to stop them from 2015 to 2020. Then, several moderation models were used to assess whether these situational factors moderate the relationship between race and perceptions of traffic stops.
Black and Hispanic drivers were less likely than White drivers to perceive the police as having a legitimate reason to stop them, even after controlling for all situational factors of the stop. However, additional analyses provided minimal evidence of situational factors moderating the association between race and perceptions of traffic stops.
This study employs several moderation models to investigate whether race and situational context interact to influence perceptions of traffic stops.
