Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Geography of Stop and Frisk in Nine U.S. Cities

美国各地的警察机构采用拦截和搜身的做法，作为积极打击犯罪战略的一部分。这些策略受到批评，因为它们不成比例地牵连黑人和拉丁裔个人，往往集中在贫困的有色人种社区，有时涉及拘留从未被捕的人。然而，现有的社会科学奖学金并没有充分解决为什么一些社区比其他社区经历更多的拦截和搜身活动。此外，它没有考虑到积极警务的地理差异与法律的决策有关的方式。这是一个重要的问题，因为法律的学者认为，第四修正案判例的发展导致了在贫穷的少数民族社区进行拦截的门槛低于在白人更富裕的地区。本研究旨在解决这些差距：（1）检查哪些社会过程产生的地理变化，在整个人口普查区的拦截和搜身，并确定“监视热点”的特点，（2）调查是否法律的标准，证明站放松在感知“高犯罪”地区。本研究通过对刑事司法制度中不平等现象的根源进行探讨，拓宽对这些不平等现象的理解。为了实现这些目的，研究者结合了三种类型的数据来分析这些关系，包括：（1）行人拦截和搜身事件，（2）犯罪事件，（3）来自人口普查和美国社区调查的人口数据。第一阶段将利用来自美国九个城市（奥斯汀、波士顿、芝加哥、丹佛、新奥尔良、纽约市、费城、弗朗西斯科和华盛顿，华盛顿特区）的数据。以确定与“监视热点”相关的社区特征和社会进程-这些地区经历了异常高的拦截和搜身活动集中度。这一阶段的分析包括估计固定效应普通最小二乘和地理加权回归模型。第二阶段利用关于两个城市（芝加哥和纽约市）的行人停车基础的详细信息，以评估进行停车的法律的阈值是否在人口普查区之间存在系统性差异。第二阶段的分析涉及估计空间回归模型，通过分析邻里边缘性、合理怀疑理由和逮捕率之间的关系来评估法律的阈值的邻里水平变化。从这项研究的结果将揭示宏观层面的社会过程，导致不公平的警务，并可以利用执法机构制定的做法，加强警察与社区的关系。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Police agencies across the United States employ stop and frisk practices as part of a proactive crime-fighting strategy. These tactics are criticized because they disproportionately implicate Black and Latinx individuals, tend to be concentrated in poor neighborhoods of color, and sometimes involve the detainment of people who are never arrested. However, existing social science scholarship does not adequately address why some neighborhoods experience more stop and frisk activity than others. Moreover, it fails to consider the ways that geographic variation in proactive policing are related to legal decision-making. This is an important question because legal scholars argue that developments in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence have resulted in a threshold for conducting stops that is lower in poor, minority neighborhoods than in Whiter, more affluent areas. The present research seeks to address these gaps by: (1) examining which social processes generate geographic variation in stop and frisk across census tracts and identifying characteristics of "surveillance hotspots," and (2) investigating whether the legal standards for justifying stops are relaxed in perceived "high-crime" areas. This study will broaden understanding of inequality in the criminal justice system by exploring the roots of these inequalities.To achieve these aims, the researcher combines three types of data to analyze these relationships, including: (1) pedestrian stop and frisk incidents, (2) crime incidents, and (3) demographic data from the Census and American Community Survey. Stage one will utilize data from nine cities across the United States (Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.) to identify the neighborhood characteristics and social processes associated with "surveillance hotspots"--those areas that experience exceptionally high concentrations of stop and frisk activity. Analyses for this stage consist of estimating fixed-effects ordinary least squares and geographically weighted regression models. The second stage draws on detailed information about the bases for pedestrian stops in two cities (Chicago and New York City) to evaluate whether the legal thresholds for conducting stops systematically varies across census tracts. Analyses for stage two involve estimating spatial regression models to evaluate neighborhood-level variation in legal thresholds for making stops by analyzing the relationships between neighborhood marginality, reasonable suspicion justifications, and arrest rates. The findings from this study will shed light on the macro-level social processes that lead to inequitable policing and could be utilized by law enforcement agencies to develop practices that enhance police-community relations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.