Starting in January, California police officers must tell drivers and pedestrians the reason for their stop before asking any questions. According to Assembly Bill 2773which was enacted in 2022 and went into effect with the new year, officers can no longer begin such encounters by asking drivers the infamous question: “Do you know why I pulled you over?”
This law, the first state reform of its kind, could represent a major improvement in relations between police and the public, but not exactly for the reasons laid out by its supporters.
He suggested boost because the bill was intended to discourage so-called pretextual stops and thereby reduce a number of racial disparities in traffic and pedestrian enforcement. Pretextual stops are those in which officers stop a motorist or pedestrian for a minor infraction (for example, a broken taillight or jaywalking) with the actual purpose of questioning or searching the person to uncover evidence of a most important infraction or crime. Although these types of arrests have been considered constitutional by the Supreme Court, have a history of being used to target people for racial bias.
Although Los Angeles and other jurisdictions have managed to discourage the tactic by directly limiting pretextual stops, California's new law is not likely to contribute significantly to that effort. While it prohibits California police officers from initiating a pretextual stop by asking a potentially incriminating question, it does nothing to override their legal right to conduct such stops.
Even if the legislation doesn't live up to its supporters' ambitions, it does promise to increase community trust in police by promoting what's known as procedural justice. In simple terms, criminal trial is the perception of fairness in interactions with authority, such as traffic stops.
According to well-founded data investigation, procedural justice matters because people who receive fairer treatment from an authority perceive it as more legitimate. In fact, the perception of fairness in an interaction with an authority sometimes matters even more than the actual outcome. And the more people perceive an authority to be legitimate, the more likely they are to follow its rules and laws.
People judge procedural justice primarily by four aspects of any interaction with an authority: whether the authority displays transparency and neutrality, whether one has a meaningful voice in the encounter, whether one is treated with respect, and whether the authority appears to have trustworthy motives.
California's new law promotes these elements of procedural justice. During a traffic stop, for example, an officer who immediately shares the reason for the stop is being transparent. This allows the motorist to directly address the legitimate and legal reason for the stop rather than feeling like they are being questioned for no reason or with an ulterior motive. This more respectful form of communication makes police officers more accountable to those over whom they wield power.
As a recent study of procedural justice found that “people accept and cooperate more with authorities when they are treated with fairness and respect.” Therefore, we can expect that California's law will strengthen trust in officers and elevate the legitimacy of policing.
By codifying a simple but influential change in how officers interact with community members, California lawmakers are promoting reform-minded, research-backed policing practices. This should lead other states to do the same; Connecticut lawmakers recently passed a similar bill.
Transparency and accountability are essential principles for better policing, and reforms like California's will help make them a reality.
Michael Bochkur Dratver is a graduate fellow at the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School.
