This article questions whether excessive policing practices can persist in an environment where law enforcement policies are subject to political pressures. Specifically, it considers a setting where the police decide whether to conduct stops based on the suspiciousness of a person's behavior...

Actors, whether guilty or innocent, may invest in costly measures to reduce their likelihood of being audited. The value of these investments are increasing in the probability with which they expect to be found guilty conditional on being audited. Because strengthening the standard of proof...