The Association Between Length of Traffic Stop and Residency Status of Connecticut

Live Poster Session: Zoom Link

Joe Hurton

Hi, my name is Joe Hurton and I am from Quincy, Massachuessets. I am a sophmore at Wesleyan University majoring in Government and I am also a member of the mens lacrosse team. In the past few summers I worked as a lifegueard on Wollaston Beach in Quincy and this most recent summer I worked as a dockmaster at Freedom Boat Club in the Seaport District of Boston. I want to pursue a career in law and I am very interested in criminal defense. During my free time I enjoy playing video games, lifting weights, and hanging out with friends. 

Abstract: Central Connect State University conducted a data set using every traffic stop in Connecticut in from 2013-2019. This project uses the intervention duration code and residency status and the third variable is the department name and this is used to analyze the stops that are conducted by local police and state police. The purpose of this project is to see your residency status effects how long you will be stopped. At the end of the project I added the statute reason code to see if they would have any effect on the results and it did not change between state police and local police. The project coded the intervention duration to a short stop, which is 0-15 minutes, and a long stop, which is 15 minutes or greater. The results we found was that if you are an in state resident, the state police is more likely to stop you for longer and be harsher to you. Versus if you are out of state the police is less likely to stop you for longer. This is the opposite for local police as they are more likely to keep an out of state resident at a stop for longer versus an in state resident. The reason for the crime and disposition, or the outcome of the stop, did not have any significance when it came to state versus local police. These results are important because it shows a police discrimination between state police and local police and how they treat residents and out of state residents differently.

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