[Poscgrad] Social Sciences Lab Lunch Talk on Oct 19, 12:30-2pm: Dr. Nicholas Weller (Political Science)

[Social Sciences Laboratory]

Dear Social Science Community,

This is a friendly *reminder* about the first lunch talk of our Fall
series! Dr. Nicholas Weller (Political Science) will present his research,
“Police Subject Black and Hispanic Drivers to More Intensive Traffic Stops
That Are Perceived as Less Legitimate.”

   - *When:* Monday, October 19, 12:30–2:00 pm
   - *Where:* INTS 1113 & Zoom <https://ucr.zoom.us/j/99846766217>
   - *Registration: *Register here <https://forms.gle/5mSW84ZaYmcd8tsa8>

If you plan to join us,* please register by today, October 8,* so we can
finalize the headcount and accommodate any dietary restrictions.

We hope to see you there!

Social Sciences Lab


On Tue, Sep 29, 2026 at 5:50 PM Social Sciences Laboratory <ssl at ucr.edu>
wrote:

> Dear Social Science Community,
>
> As we begin the fall quarter, we are excited to kick off our lunch talk
> series with our first talk of the academic year. Please join us on October
> 19 for a presentation by Dr. Nicholas Weller (Political Science), who will
> present his research titled* “Police Subject Black and Hispanic Drivers
> to More Intensive Traffic Stops That Are Perceived as Less Legitimate.” *We
> hope you can join us for an engaging discussion and a chance to connect
> with colleagues over lunch!
>
> *Date and Time:* October 19 (Mon), from 12:30 to 2 pm.
> *Location*: INTS 1113 & Zoom <https://ucr.zoom.us/j/99846766217>
> *Speaker*: Dr. Nicholas Weller (Political Science)
> *Registration*: Please register here <https://forms.gle/5mSW84ZaYmcd8tsa8>
>  by *Oct 8* so we can finalize the headcount and accommodate any dietary
> restrictions.
>
>
> [image: SSL Lunch Talk_Weller_Oct19.png]
>
> *Title*: Police Subject Black and Hispanic Drivers to More Intensive
> Traffic Stops That Are Perceived as Less Legitimate
>
> *Abstract: *Police reform rooted in procedural justice targets the
> content of officers' communication rather than enforcement outcomes. These
> reforms are based on evidence that citizen perceptions of police legitimacy
> are more strongly affected by officers' adherence to procedural fairness
> than their ultimate enforcement decisions. However, this evidence rests on
> a narrow operationalization of citizen outcomes defined as arrests or
> citations, overlooking a wide range of intrusive actions shown to affect
> citizens' perceptions of police but rarely recorded in administrative
> police data. We reevaluate the assumed primacy of officer communication
> over citizen outcomes using detailed annotations of more than 1,500
> body-worn camera recordings covering 917 Los Angeles Police Department
> traffic stops. We construct a stop-level measure of procedural justice and
> compare it to a new measure of stop intensity: the cumulative intrusiveness
> of discretionary officer action within an interaction. We show that Black
> and Hispanic drivers experience substantially more intense stops than White
> drivers; this gap persists after conditioning on stop context and citizens'
> escalatory behavior during a stop. We also show, counter to prevailing
> wisdom, that stop intensity predicts perceived legitimacy as strongly as
> procedural justice. Our findings underscore the utility of expanding
> currently narrow measures of citizen outcomes in assessment of
> police-citizen interactions, and that reforms intended to enhance police
> legitimacy should also address intrusive police behavior rarely captured in
> administrative enforcement data.
>
>
> Social Sciences Lab
>
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