Stories by Derek Epp

Derek A. Epp is an associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. His research studies policing, information processing, and policymaking. He is an author of Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us about Policing and Race (2018).

A young black man wearing a red vest looks away from the camera towards a police car parked on a street corner as he walks by in the in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn on November 18, 2019 in New York City

OpinionFebruary 29, 2024

‘Consent’ Searches Don’t Stop Drug Trafficking. They Threaten Privacy Rights

U.S. police embraced frequent “consent” searches of motorists during the “tough on crime” era. These searches, meant to sidestep privacy rights, are both racially misapplied and ineffective

Derek Epp, Hannah L. Walker, Megan Dias, Marcel Roman