“I Don’t Profile People… But I Do Profile Cars”: Driver Class and Discretionary Searches

Over 550,000 U.S. traffic stops in 2022 and 2023 were analyzed to explore the relationships between class, race, place, and the outcomes of discretionary searches. Drivers of lower-value vehicles were more likely to be subject to discretionary searches, but these searches were less likely to result in the recovery of contraband. Black and Hispanic drivers were still more likely to be searched than non-Hispanic White drivers when considering this relationship, and drivers of lower-value vehicles were most likely to be searched when “out-of-place” in high-income areas. Searching drivers based on social class signals may lead to inefficiencies in search outcomes.