Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2026

Abstract

Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court decided Illinois v. Wardlow, a Fourth Amendment case that allowed the high-crime nature of a location to be considered in determinations of whether there was reasonable suspicion to support a police stop. In making these determinations, courts rarely acknowledge the role that race can play in decisions that factor in the nature of a location as context. Yet even when the race of a defendant is not mentioned, high-crime area designations can act as a proxy for race inviting racial bias into courts’ analyses. Reasonable suspicion analysis involves the interpretation of a suspect’s ambiguous behavior, and research suggests that racial bias can play a role in such interpretations. Tellingly, in high-crime areas, police stops have been found to be supported by reasonable suspicion even when people are engaged in commonplace activities that innocent people engage in—like waiting in a car for a few moments, handling an opaque bag, or wearing a fanny pack across the chest rather than around the waist.

While many articles focus on police officers’ biases in these cases, this article shifts the focus to how judges are justifying their decisions to find these stops constitutional. Looking to studies from the field of psychology, this article demonstrates that the use of high-crime area designations can encourage not only police, but also courts who review their actions, to tap into racial bias. It argues that racial stereotypes can find their way into decision-making when judges rubber stamp police officers’ characterizations of individuals’ ambiguous behaviors that assume criminality or even offer characterizations of their own to fill in evidentiary gaps. Ultimately, this article challenges judges to shore up their processes to disrupt these biases as they assess the lawfulness of police stops that factor in location. Doing so will ensure that suspicion is particular to the individual stopped and not merely the product of widespread biases that high-crime area designations invite.

Publication Citation

American Criminal Law Review, Vol. 63, Number 2, Pp. 157-209.

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