The Hit Rates Test for Racial Bias in Motor-Vehicle Searches

Taylor and FrancisRJQY_A_271625.sgm10.1080/07418820701717201Justice Quarterly0741- 825 (pri t)/1745-9109 (online)Original Article2 07 & Francis44 000December 2007NicolaPersiconicola @ i ol p ico.com This paper exposits a rational choice model of police–motorist interactions originally developed in Knowles, Persico, and Todd (Knowles, J., Persico, N., & Todd, P. [2001]. Racial bias in motor vehicle searches: Theory and evidence. Journal of Political Economy, 109, 203–299). It discusses how the model provides a test for detecting bias in police enforcement based on the success rate of searches and presents empirical evidence on the model’s implications based on policing data from Maryland. Keywords hit rates test; motor-vehicle searches; racial bia