How does the state respond to members of the public seeking to mobilize its coercive power? Focusing on welfare fraud control units in the United States, we examine how race/ethnicity and written English proficiency affect access to systems for reporting welfare fraud suspicions. Using a correspondence audit, we assess fraud control authorities' likelihood of taking up reports from Latinas and Whites with higher and lower English proficiency. We find that fraud units are less likely to take up lower-proficiency Whites' reports, but that lower proficiency's uptake-dampening effect does not hold for Latinas. To explain the mechanisms underlying our experimental results, we draw on interviews with fraud investigators. The interview evidence reveals the determinations of investigative promise underlying these uptake disparities. For White reporters, English errors cue gatekeepers' preexisting skepticism about public reporters' reliability, decreasing enthusiasm for investing resources in these reports. Reports from lower-English proficiency Latinas offer special viability appeal, however, offsetting the negative influence on uptake probability that errors demonstrate for White reporters. Our results shed new light on contemporary racial/ethnic dynamics in the US welfare system, and advance social scientific understanding of how bureaucratic gatekeepers decide what to do—if anything—with volunteered reports of misconduct.

中文翻译：

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听告密者：种族/民族、英语水平以及福利欺诈执法系统的使用权

国家如何应对寻求动员其强制力的公众成员？以美国的福利欺诈控制部门为重点，我们研究了种族/民族和书面英语水平如何影响对举报福利欺诈嫌疑的系统的访问。通过通信审计，我们评估了欺诈控制当局接受来自英语水平较高和较低的拉丁裔和白人报告的可能性。我们发现欺诈单位不太可能接受低熟练度白人的报告，但低熟练度的吸收抑制效应不适用于拉丁裔。为了解释我们实验结果背后的机制，我们对欺诈调查人员进行了采访。访谈证据揭示了这些吸收差异背后的调查承诺的确定。对于白人记者来说，英语错误暗示了看门人对公共记者可靠性的怀疑，从而降低了在这些报道中投入资源的热情。然而，来自英语水平较低的拉丁裔的报告提供了特殊的可行性吸引力，抵消了错误对白人记者所表现出的对吸收概率的负面影响。我们的研究结果为美国福利体系中的当代种族/民族动态提供了新的视角，并促进了对官僚看门人如何通过自愿报告的不当行为报告来决定做什么（如果有的话）的社会科学理解。然而，来自英语水平较低的拉丁裔的报告提供了特殊的可行性吸引力，抵消了错误对白人记者所表现出的对吸收概率的负面影响。我们的研究结果为美国福利体系中的当代种族/民族动态提供了新的视角，并促进了对官僚看门人如何通过自愿报告的不当行为报告来决定做什么（如果有的话）的社会科学理解。然而，来自英语水平较低的拉丁裔的报告提供了特殊的可行性吸引力，抵消了错误对白人记者所表现出的对吸收概率的负面影响。我们的研究结果为美国福利体系中的当代种族/民族动态提供了新的视角，并促进了对官僚看门人如何通过自愿报告的不当行为报告来决定做什么（如果有的话）的社会科学理解。