Disentangling the Effects of Racial Self-identification and Classification by Others: The Case of Arrest
Open accessAbstract
Scholars of race have stressed the importance of thinking about race as a multidimensional construct, yet research on racial inequality does not routinely take this multidimensionality into account. We draw on data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to disentangle the effects of self-identifying as black and being classified by others as black on subsequently being arrested. Results reveal that the odds of arrest are nearly three times higher for people who were classified by others as black, even if they did not identify themselves as black. By contrast, we find no effect of self-identifying as black among people who were not seen by others as black. These results suggest that racial perceptions play an important role in racial disparities in arrest rates and provide a useful analytical approach for disentangling the effects of race on other outcomes.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Racial categorization operates both as an input and an output to racial inequality.
“Saperstein and Penner find that racial categorization operates both as an input and an output to racial inequality.”
From Towards a critical race methodology in algorithmic fairness (2020) · cites this paper as [89]
The Introduction and Data and Methods sections examine racial classification as a predictor of inequality in arrest: being seen as black was associated with higher odds of a subsequent arrest. The paper does not establish the other half of the claim—that racial categorization is an output of inequality. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn survey responses, individuals who experience an increase in social position may be more likely to lighten themselves, while those who become more disadvantaged may darken themselves.
“Individuals who experience an increase in social position (e.g. increased income) may be more likely to “lighten” themselves in survey responses, while those who become more disadvantaged (e.g. experiencing unemployment or incarceration) may “darken” themselves [89, 105].”
From Towards a critical race methodology in algorithmic fairness (2020) · cites this paper as [89]
The Data and Methods section (page unavailable) says prior research suggests that contact with the criminal justice system shapes later racial self-identification. It does not say that incarceration leads people to identify as darker, or that increased income and unemployment produce the claimed changes in survey responses. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSelf-identification has been shown to be responsive to one's arrest records and to one's class position.
“Self-identification has been shown to be responsive to one's arrest records [89] and to one's class position [115].”
From Towards a critical race methodology in algorithmic fairness (2020) · cites this paper as [89]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.74.6.1464 · Cited by 11,720 · see citing works
Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: the implicit association test
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464 · Cited by 9,210 · see citing works
Pager, D. (2003) · American Journal of Sociology · doi:10.1086/374403 · Cited by 2,840 · see citing works
(2004) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.41-3121 · Cited by 2,725 · see citing works
Brubaker, R., Loveman, M., & Stamatov, P. (2004) · Theory and Society · doi:10.1023/b:ryso.0000021405.18890.63 · Cited by 739 · see citing works
Bush, R. D. (2006) · Science & Society · doi:10.1521/siso.70.3.431 · Cited by 645 · see citing works
EFFECT OF SUSPECT RACE ON OFFICERS’ ARREST DECISIONS*
Kochel, T. R., Wilson, D. B., & Mastrofski, S. D. (2011) · Criminology · doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.2011.00230.x · Cited by 366 · see citing works
Does it matter who answers the race question? Racial classification and income inequality in Brazil
Telles, E. E., & Lim, N. (1998) · Demography · doi:10.2307/3004014 · Cited by 280 · see citing works
Racial Measurement in the American Census: Past Practices and Implications for the Future
Snipp, C. M. (2003) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100006 · Cited by 188 · see citing works
The neighborhood context of racial and ethnic disparities in arrest
Kirk, D. (2008) · Demography · doi:10.1353/dem.2008.0011 · Cited by 146 · see citing works
Roth, W. D. (2010) · Social Science Quarterly · doi:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2010.00732.x · Cited by 145 · see citing works
The Race of a Criminal Record: How Incarceration Colors Racial Perceptions
Saperstein, A., & Penner, A. M. (2010) · Social Problems · doi:10.1525/sp.2010.57.1.92 · Cited by 114 · see citing works
Self-citationCapturing complexity in the United States: which aspects of race matter and when?
Saperstein, A. (2011) · Ethnic and Racial Studies · doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.607504 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Self-citationRace, color, and income inequality across the Americas
Bailey, S. R., Saperstein, A., & Penner, A. M. (2014) · Demographic Research · doi:10.4054/demres.2014.31.24 · Cited by 86 · see citing works
Self-citationThe multiple-race population of the United States: Issues and estimates
Goldstein, J. R., & Morning, A. J. (2000) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.100086897 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Beyond Capital High: On Dual Citizenship and the Strange Career of “Acting White”
Fordham, S. (2008) · Anthropology & Education Quarterly · doi:10.1111/j.1548-1492.2008.00019.x · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics
Yancy, G., & Jones, J. (2014) · Cited by 64 · see citing works
From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America
Shin, J. H., & Takaki, R. (1996) · Teaching Sociology · doi:10.2307/1318912 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
The Criminal Justice System and the Racialization of Perceptions
Saperstein, A., Penner, A. M., & Kizer, J. M. (2013) · The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · doi:10.1177/0002716213503097 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Self-citationCheng, S., & Powell, B. (2011) · American Sociological Review · doi:10.1177/0003122411401249 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America
Puglisi, M. J., & Takaki, R. (1996) · The History Teacher · doi:10.2307/494230 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models
Bommasani, R., Hudson, D. A., Adeli, E., Altman, R., Arora, S., von Arx, S., Bernstein, M. S., Bohg, J., Bosselut, A., Brunskill, E., et al. (2021) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2108.07258 · Cited by 2,676 · see citing works
Towards a critical race methodology in algorithmic fairness
Hanna, A., Denton, R., Smart, A., & Smith-Loud, J. (2020) · Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency · doi:10.1145/3351095.3372826 · Cited by 295 · see citing works
“encing unemployment or incarceration) may "darken" themselves [89, 105].”
- Authors
- Penner, A. M., & Saperstein, A.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Venue
- Demography
- Publisher
- Duke University Press
- Published
- 2015-05-27
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1017-1024
- ISSN
- 0070-3370 (ISSN-L)
- 1533-7790
- OpenAlex
- W417212831
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 14.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Demography (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Russell Sage Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Keywords
- racial self-identification, race perception, racial disparities in arrests, racial inequality, racial misclassification
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Black or African American, Criminology, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Socioeconomic Factors, United States, Law Enforcement, Young Adult, Racism
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
