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This Article empirically illustrates that legal doctrines permitting police officers to engage in pretextual traffic stops may contribute to an increase in racial profiling. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 'Whren v. United States' that pretextual traffic stops do not violate the Fourth Amendment. As long as police officers identify an objective violation of a traffic law, they may lawfully stop a motorist-even if their actual intention is to use the stop to investigate a hunch that by itself does not amount to probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Scholars and civil rights activists have sharply criticized 'Whren', arguing that it gives police officers permission to engage in racial profiling. But social scientists have struggled to empirically evaluate how 'Whren' has influenced police behavior. A series of court decisions in the State of Washington presents an opportunity to test the effects of pretextual-stop doctrines on police behavior. In the years since the 'Whren' decision, Washington has experimented with multiple rules that provide differing levels of protection against pretextual stops. In 1999, the Washington Supreme Court held in 'State v. Ladson' that the state constitution barred police from conducting pretextual traffic stops. However, in 2012, the court eased this restriction on pretextual stops in 'State v. Arreola'.

This study is the first to empirically demonstrate widespread discrimination across the United States based on perceived sexual orientation, sex, and race in mortgage lending. Our analysis of over five million mortgage applications reveals that any Fair Housing Administration (FHA) loan application filed by same-sex male co-applicants is significantly less likely to be approved compared to the white heterosexual baseline (holding lending risk constant). The most likely explanation for this pattern is sexual orientation–based discrimination—despite the fact that FHA loans are the only type of loan in which discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is prohibited. Moreover, we find compelling evidence to support the intersectionality theory. According to this theory, when sex and race unite, a new form of discrimination emerges that cannot be explained by sexism or racism alone. The data unequivocally indicates that the race and sex of same-sex applicants play a role and result in a unique and previously unobserved pattern. This discriminatory pattern plagues every region in the United States, and it transcends party lines (that is, it is present in red, blue, and swing states). Furthermore, upending conventional wisdom, the data reveals that big banks discriminate at the same rate as small banks, and lenders in urban environments are as discriminatory as rural lenders. Prior studies failed to reveal this phenomenon due to data constraints and design flaws. These studies relied on testers posing as applicants, and none could investigate how intersectionality influences lending practices. Despite the grim results, a silver lining exists. We find that the pattern of discrimination diminishes or disappears in states and localities that pass anti–sexual orientation discrimination laws. These findings have important and timely implications. In 2017, a new bill offering nationwide protection from sexual orientation credit discrimination was introduced. The same year experienced tectonic changes in Title VII jurisprudence. Our study can reinvigorate the debate and help policymakers tailor remedies that would correct the discriminatory pattern this study unravels.

One major challenge facing policy-makers is to design education and workplace training programs that are appropriately challenging. We review previous research that suggests that difficult training is better than easy training. However, surveys we conducted of students and of expert sport coaches showed that many prescribed easy rather than difficult training for those they coached. We analyzed the performance of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball teams in postseason tournaments to see whether the existing research, largely on individuals in short-term situations, would generalize to teams in the long run. Indeed, playing difficult nonconference (training) games modestly improved performance for NCAA teams in the postseason. Difficult training particularly benefitted teams that lost many nonconference games, and the effect of difficulty was positive within the range of difficulty NCAA teams actually encounter, making it clear that difficult training is superior. We suggest that our results can be generalized beyond sports, although with careful consideration of differences between NCAA basketball teams and other teams that may limit generalizability. These results suggest that policy-makers might consider amplifying the difficulty of team training exercises under certain conditions.

This Article examines the effect of state laws restricting the use of police quotas. Police quotas describe the establishment of a predetermined number of traffic stops, citations, or arrests that officers must make within a particular time period. Some police supervisors have historically used quotas to ensure adequate productivity by officers. However, critics argue that quotas incentivize officers to engage in unnecessary, and in some cases, unconstitutional, coercive behavior. Numerous states across the country have enacted laws banning or limiting the use of police quotas.

This Article builds on prior work by empirically analyzing the effect of federal intervention in local police departments on crime and clearance rates, using updated data and methodologies. Congress passed 34 U.S.C. § 12601 (formerly 42 U.S.C. § 14141) in 1994 to give the United States Attorney General the authority to seek equitable relief against local and state law enforcement agencies engaged in patterns or practices of misconduct. Since its passage, the Department of Justice has investigated and intervened into dozens of American police departments, including some of the largest police departments in the country. Federal intervention represents one of the most significant, and arguably effective, forms of police reform. However, critics have argued that this top-down reform process may unintentionally cause officers to reduce enforcement, thereby contributing to higher crime rates. Some have labeled this theory the de-policing hypothesis. Prior studies have attempted to test this theory, often with inconsistent results. Using updated methods and a significantly larger dataset, this Article attempts to re-examine the empirical support for the de-policing hypothesis in federal intervention cases. We find no evidence of de-policing after federal intervention. In fact, years after federal intervention, we find evidence that crime rates in cities targeted for federal intervention declined relative to our control group. These findings have important implications for the literature on police reform and the empirical study of the criminal justice system. They suggest that there need not be a compromise between the protection of constitutional rights and public safety.

The seminal ruling of Tarasoff v. Board of Regents of the Universities of California enacted a duty that required mental health providers to warn potential victims of any real threat to life made by a patient. Many have theorized that this required breach of confidentiality may have adverse effects on effective psychological treatment—but the issue remains unaddressed empirically. Because of the presence of duty-to-warn laws, patients might forgo mental health treatment that would prevent violence. Using a fixed-effects model and exploiting the variation in the timing and style of duty-to-warn laws across states, I find that mandatory duty-to-warn laws cause an increase in the homicide rate of .4, or 5 percent. These results are robust to model specifications and falsification tests and help to clarify the true effect of state duty-to-warn laws.

The seminal ruling ofTarasoff v. Board of Regents of the Universities of Californiaenacted a duty that required mental health providers to warn potential victims of any real threat to life made by a patient. Many have theorized that this required breach of confidentiality may have adverse effects on effective psychological treatment—but the issue remains unaddressed empirically. Because of the presence of duty-to-warn laws, patients might forgo mental health treatment that would prevent violence. Using a fixed-effects model and exploiting the variation in the timing and style of duty-to-warn laws across states, I find that mandatory duty-to-warn laws cause an increase in the homicide rate of .4, or 5 percent. These results are robust to model specifications and falsification tests and help to clarify the true effect of state duty-to-warn laws.

We exploit within-state variation across time in both the existence and length of statutory delays both explicit wait periods and delays created by licensing requirements - between the purchase and delivery of a firearm to examine the effect of purchase delays on homicides and suicides. We find that the existence of a purchase delay reduces firearm-related suicides by between 2% and 5% with no statistically significant increase in non-firearm suicides. Purchase delays are not associated with statistically significant changes in homicide rates.

This Article empirically illustrates that the introduction of voluntary and presumptive sentencing guidelines at the state level can contribute to statistically significant reductions in sentence length, interjudge disparities, and racial disparities. For much of American history, judges had largely unguided discretion to select criminal sentences within statutorily authorized ranges. But in the mid- to late-twentieth century, states and the federal government began experimenting with sentencing guidelines designed to rein in judicial discretion to ensure that similarly situated offenders received comparable sentences. Some states have made their guidelines voluntary, while others have made their guidelines presumptive or mandatory, meaning that judges must generally adhere to them unless they can justify a departure. In order to explore the effects of both voluntary and presumptive sentencing guidelines on judicial behavior, this Article relies on a comprehensive data set of 221,934 criminal sentences handed down by 355 different judges in Alabama between 2002 and 2015. This data set provides a unique opportunity to address this empirical question, in part because of Alabama's legislative history. Between 2002 and 2006, Alabama had no sentencing guidelines. In 2006, the state introduced voluntary sentencing guidelines. Then in 2013, the state made these sentencing guidelines presumptive for some nonviolent offenses. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that the introduction of voluntary sentencing guidelines in Alabama coincided with a decrease in average sentence length of around seven months. When the same guidelines became presumptive, the average sentence length dropped by almost two years. Further, using a triple-difference framework, we show that the adoption of these sentencing guidelines coincided with around eight- to twelve-month reductions in race-based sentencing disparities and substantial reductions in interjudge sentencing disparities across all classes of offenders. Combined, these data suggest that voluntary and presumptive sentencing guidelines can help states combat inequality in their criminal justice systems while controlling the sizes of their prison populations.