Beyond Discrimination: Racial Inequality in a Post-Racist Era

Chapter 5. A Measure of Justice: What Policing Racial Bias Research Reveals

157 Chapter 5    A Measure of Justice: What Policing Racial Bias Research Reveals Phillip Atiba Goff How does one explain persistent racial inequality in the face of declining racial prejudice? This riddle, which I call the “attitude-­ inequality mismatch ” question (or the AIM question, for short), is the fundamental problem facing contemporary scholars of race in the United States (as well as the rationale for this volume). A related and equally provocative question, however, is this: Why have we not answered this question yet? Racial attitudes have improved from the past half century (Devine and Elliott 1995; Dovidio 2001), but racial inequalities in law enforcement, health care, and education have not seen commensurate reductions during the same period (Gabbidon and Greene 2005; Jargowsky 1998; Massey and Denton 1993; Oliver and Shapiro 1995; Pager 2003; Sidanius and Pratto 1999; Wilson 1996). Why have we been left so long without answers to this foundational question? This second question—Why is there such confusion when racial attitudes do not predict racial outcomes?—is the subject of the present chapter . Two related problems frustrate efforts to understand the AIM question. First, racism is hard to measure. Second, many assume that prejudice is the one and only cause of discrimination. For the purposes of this chapter, I refer to these two problems as the measurement problem and the attitude problem, respectively. Although these problems afflict multiple domains, they are peculiarly relevant to racial bias in policing. 158    Beyond Discrimination Defining the Problems The measurement problem refers to the difficulty inherent in quantifying racism, racial discrimination, or any other violation of justice. This problem can be understood in terms of two separate components: causality and data. The causality component refers to the difficulty in distinguishing racial disparities from racial discrimination (Blank, Dabady, and Citro 2004; Goff et al. 2010; Ridgeway and MacDonald 2010). Whereas measuring racial disparities requires merely observing differences between groups, measuring racial discrimination requires the ability to relate those inequalities to some sinister causal factor. That is, measuring discrimination requires that one be able to determine what causes racial inequalities. If one can accomplish this feat of methodological gymnastics, and the cause is sinister, then it is safe to say that one has measured racial discrimination . As a point of illustration, in this chapter I offer the example of racial profiling. Doubtless, there are profound racial disparities between African Americans , Latinos, whites, American Indians, and Asians with regard to criminal justice outcomes (Alpert and Dunham 2003; Baldus, Woodworth, and Pulaski 1990; Eberhardt et al. 2006; Muhammad 2010; Pager 2003; Sidanius and Pratto 1999; Tyler and Huo 2002). Yet as obvious as those disparities are, how should one go about demonstrating that they are also discriminatory ? Noting that blacks, Latinos, and American Indians are disproportionately stopped, arrested, and incarcerated is not the same thing as saying that police discrimination is at least partially responsible for those disparities (Blank, Dabady, and Citro 2004; Fridell 2004; Goff et al. 2010; Ridgeway and MacDonald 2010). Similarly, it is possible to imagine that racial discrimination that occurs well before an individual has contact with an officer (for example, employment discrimination) might increase an individual ’s likelihood of being involved in illegal activities (for example, selling drugs or stealing food), which subsequently increases one’s likelihood of being stopped and eventually becoming involved in the criminal justice system (Walker, Spohn, and Delone 2007). Demonstrating discrimination on the part of officers or police departments , therefore, requires some way of determining that officer behaviors or departmental policies contribute to the racial disparities in stops and arrests. Scholars and practitioners have employed numerous metrics to assess racial profiling (Fridell 2004; Goff et al. 2010; Harris 2002; Ridgeway and MacDonald 2010), but it is not clear that there is a single best method. Consequently, if it is not clear what evidence would constitute proof that the behaviors of officers or policies of departments are responsible for ra- A Measure of Justice    159 cial disparities, then it is also not clear what would constitute an appropriate measure of racial discrimination in law enforcement. This is the first component of the measurement problem. Should some intrepid researchers outwit the conceptual obstacles to measuring racism in police stops, they will quite likely confront the measurement problem’s second and equally frustrating challenge: the data component. That is, the data that would be required often do not exist or are not made available. Again, in...