Daylight, race, gender, and age: Testing the veil of darkness and luxury brand car to examine racial profiling

The veil of darkness (VOD) is a low-cost analytical approach that considers how the presence of daylight may influence the officer's decision-making based on the driver's race/ethnicity. Knode and colleagues expanded upon VOD by considering a novel seasonal weighting to account for seasonality and using this framework; the current study also considers how the physical characteristics of the car, specifically a luxury brand car, may also impact the officer's decision-making and how sensitivity analyses when testing VOD should also account for the driver's gender and age. This study examined traffic stops by the Chicago IL Police Department between 2016 and 2018 during the intertwilight time period. The results indicate that racial profiling was only evident within the context of VOD for stops made in daylight involving young Black male drivers and for young Black male drivers who were stopped in a luxury brand car. In all other models, racial profiling was not evident. Future studies should also consider how the type of vehicle or the age or gender of the driver may also influence police decision-making for the VOD hypothesis.