Identify and discuss the issues that arise from bias and police discretion.

Racial Bias
The phrase Driving While Black has been coined to refer to the repeated findings of many studies that African American drivers are disproportionately stopped by police and that race is the primary reason for this practice.

African American youth are arrested at a rate disproportionate to their representation in the population. Research on this issue has yielded mixed conclusions. One view is that although discrimination may have existed in the past, there is no longer a need to worry about racial discrimination because minorities now possess sufficient political status to protect them within the justice system. In contrast to these views, several research efforts do show evidence of police discrimination against African American youths. According to Bishop and Frazier, African Americans are more likely than European Americans to be recommended for formal processing, referred to court, adjudicated delinquent, and given harsher dispositions for comparable offenses. In the arrest category, specifically, being African American increases the probability of formal police action.

Gender Bias
Some experts favor the chivalry hypothesis, which holds that police are likely to act paternally toward young girls and not arrest them. Others believe that police may be more likely to arrest female offenders because their actions violate officers' stereotypes of the female. Research indicates that police tend to be more lenient toward females than males with regard to acts of delinquency; females who have committed minor or status offenses seem to be referred to juvenile court more often than males; and recent evidence has confirmed earlier studies showing that the police, and most likely the courts, apply a double standard in dealing with male and female juvenile offenders.

Organizational Bias
The policies of some police departments may result in biased practices. Organizational policy may be influenced by the perceptions of police decision makers. A number of experts have found that law enforcement administrators have a stereotyped view of the urban poor as troublemakers who must be kept under control. Consequently, lower-class neighborhoods experience much greater police scrutiny than middle-class areas, and their residents face a proportionately greater chance of arrest.

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