\\server05\productn\C\CPP\8-2\CPP216.txt unknown Seq: 1 5-JUN-09 7:41 EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION Political influences on racial disparities in traffic enforcement practices Jack McDevitt, Senior Editor Northeastern University The issue of racial profiling has become one of the more frustrating methodological issues challenging criminal justice researchers over the past two decades. In the 1990s, as claims of “driving while black” came to public attention, several academic researchers and law enforcement lead- ers began to collect information on the traffic enforcement practices of the law enforcement officer, often for the first time, in an effort to address allegations of racial profiling (Fridell, 2004). By 2004, approximately 4,000 law enforcement agencies were collecting data on traffic enforcement practices in their jurisdictions (Farrell, McDevitt, Bailey, Andresen, and Pierce, 2004). As these data were analyzed, the clear answers to questions about the existence and extent of racial profiling anticipated by many proved to be more complex than originally anticipated. Methodological concerns about the appropriate benchmark or comparison population, the types of stops and searches that should be included in any analysis, and the appropriate level of aggregation for analysis all confounded attempts to measure racial profiling. Additionally, it became clear that the decision to stop or search a driver based on their race or ethnicity was an internal decision by an indi- vidual officer, and social science did not have the appropriate tools to measure this kind of decision. One of the most challenging conclusions of this early research was that racial disparities did in fact exist, particularly regarding law enforcement searches, but researchers could not determine whether the disparities uncovered were the result of racial profiling. It was noted that racial and ethnic disparities could be caused by factors other than racial bias. Factors such as differential deployment, focusing resources on drug intervention, and racial and ethnic differences in criminal involvement might explain the disparities (Farrell et al., 2004). These conclusions frustrated many involved on either side of the racial profiling debate. CRIMINOLOGY & Public Policy Volume 8 Issue 2 Copyright 2009 American Society of Criminology 337