Cook Center DITE Fellow Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba recently published a paper in the American Economic Association’s (AEA) Paper and Proceedings that details how local law enforcement agencies in North Carolina, under the threat of federal scrutiny, shifted their racially discriminatory policing practices.
Rubalcaba, an assistant professor in the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was the lead author on the paper, titled “DOJ Intervention and the Checkpoint Shift: Profiling Hispanic Motorists under the 287(g) Program.” Also co-authors on the paper were two Cook Center Faculty Affiliates: Alberto Ortega, assistant professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, and Prentiss A. Dantzler, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto.
The paper explores how a DOJ investigation into the Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina’s Alamance County affected policing behavior in similar agencies in the state. The paper’s findings suggest these agencies, under threat of investigation, modify their discriminatory strategies and shift their racial profiling to less visible settings, perpetuating racial and ethnic disparities in policing.
The paper can be read here.
