Racial bias in police traffic stops: White residents' county-level prejudice and stereotypes are related to disproportionate stopping of Black drivers

Racial disparities in policing are well documented, but the reasons for such disparities are often debated. The current research weighs in on this debate using a regional-level bias framework: We investigate the link between racial disparities in police traffic stops and regional-level racial bias, employing data from over 130 million police traffic stops in 1,413 US counties and county-level measures of racial bias from over 2 million online participants. Compared to county demographics, Black drivers were stopped at disproportionate rates in the majority of counties. Crucially, disproportionate stopping of Black drivers was higher in counties with higher levels of racial prejudice by White residents (rs = 0.07 -0.36). Furthermore, county-level aggregates of Whites’ threat-related stereotypes were less consistent in predicting disproportionate stopping (rs = 0.00 -0.19). These observed relationships between regional-level bias and racial disparities in policing highlight the importance of context in which police operate.