Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:20 pm
Time: 11:20 pm
Results for traffic stops
21 results foundAuthor: Lamberth, John C. Title: Data Collection and Benchmarking of the Bias Policing Project: Final Report for the Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia Summary: One of the major issues in data analysis to date has been in determining the appropriate benchmark or standard to which the stop data are to be compared. The methodology employed in this study is one that has been employed in several studies across the country and is relied upon by several courts. This methodology employs what Lamberth Consulting believes to be the only appropriate benchmark for such an analysis; that is, a direct measure of the transient populations (driving populations and pedestrian populations) in specific locations. Details: West Chester, PA: Lamberth Consulting, 2006 Source: Year: 2006 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 104997 Keywords: Racial ProfilingTraffic StopsWashington, DC |
Author: Open Society Institute Title: Addressing Ethnic Profiling by Police: A Report on Strategies for Effective Police Stop and Search Project. Improving Relations Between Police and Minority Communitites by Increasing the Fairness, Effectiveness, and Accountability in Stops in Bulgaria, Hu Summary: Every day, police in Europe make hundreds of decisions about whom to stop and search. The power to stop and search is a basic tool of policing and stops are the primary point of contact with police for most people, but their impact and effectiveness are rarely examined. Stops and searches can help detect crime, but can also entail ethnic profiling and damage police-community relations if members of minority groups are stopped disproportionately. This book describes how selected police forces in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Spain worked with the Open Society Institute to monitor the use of stops, determine if they disproportionately affect minority groups, and assess their efficacy in detecting and solving crime. The ultimate goal of the Strategies for Effective Police Stop and Search (STEPSS) project was to improve relations between police and minority communities by increasing the fairness, effectiveness, and accountability of police stops. This work details the successes and shortcomings of the STEPSS project. It tracks the changes undertaken by participating police forces, including a municipal police force in Spain that increased the effectiveness of stops while reducing their number and disproportionality. Perhaps most important, this work provides a roadmap toward greater fairness, improved efficiency, and better police-community relations. Details: New York: 2009 Source: Open Society Justice Initiative; AGIS Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 115826 Keywords: Police BehaviorProfilingTraffic Stops |
Author: Ridgeway, Greg Title: Cincinnati Police Department Traffic Stops: Applying RAND's Framework to Analyze Racial Disparities Summary: In Cincinnati, a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), dated April 12, 2002, sought to remedy a pattern or practice of conduct by law-enforcement officers that deprives individuals of rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the U.S. Constitution or federal law. Separately in 2002, the City of Cincinnati and other parties (collectively, the parties) entered into a collaborative agreement in an attempt to resolve social conflict, improve community-police relations, reduce crime and disorder, and resolve pending individual and organizational legal claims about racially biased policing in Cincinnati. In July 2004, the city, on behalf of the parties of the collaborative agreement, hired the RAND Corporation to conduct evaluations over the course of five years to assist the parties with measuring progress toward the goals of the collaborative agreement. This monograph represents the final annual report, for the fifth year. While the evaluations in the previous years covered a large series of tasks, this evaluation focuses solely on three assessments of the traffic-stop data: (1) an assessment of whether there is a departmentwide pattern of bias against black drivers in the decision to stop a vehicle, (2) an assessment of the fraction of CPD officers who disproportionately stop black drivers compared to other officers patrolling the same neighborhoods at the same time, and (3) an assessment of racial biases in post-stop outcomes, including stop duration, citation rates, and search rate In assessing whether there is a department-wide pattern of bias against black drivers in the decision to stop a vehicle, we take an approach that is different from the traditional approaches to creating an external benchmark—all of which have some limitations; our approach gets around those limitations by taking advantage of a natural experiment involving daylight saving time (DST) that does not require explicit external estimates of the racial or ethnic distribution of those at risk of being stopped. More specifically, to assess bias in the decision to stop, we compare stops immediately before and immediately after changes to and from DST, when a similar mix of drivers and a similar allocation of police officers will be in effect and in which the only major difference will be in officers’ ability to see, because of the shift from daylight to darkness, the race of the drivers being stopped. From that assessment, we found the following, for 2008: • Black drivers were less likely to be stopped during daylight, when drivers’ races are more visible, evidence that is counter to what we would expect if there were racial profiling. • Aggregating six years of data, from 2003 to 2008, we find no evidence of racial profiling in officers’ decisions to stop drivers. In assessing whether there is racial bias in the decision to stop at the individual officer level, we use an internal-benchmarking approach that constructs a customized internal benchmark for each officer, comparing the racial distribution of suspects stopped by the officer in question with the racial distribution of suspects stopped by other officers at the same times and places and in the same contexts. This method selects an officer, identifies stops that other officers made at the same time and in the same neighborhood, and compares the racial distributions of the stopped drivers. Since the officers are patrolling the same areas at the same times, the racial distributions should be the same (assuming that the officers are on the same assignment). When we conduct the internal-benchmarking assessment, we find the following: • Ten officers appear to be stopping significantly more black drivers than did other officers patrolling at the same times and places and in the same contexts. In assessing whether there is racial bias or disparities in what happens after the stop—in the length of the stop, in the rates at which officers cite motorists, and in the way they conduct vehicle searches—we use a method known as propensity-score weighting to identify stops involving nonblack drivers that are similarly situated to the stops involving black drivers and make post-stop comparisons between the two groups. Doing so allows us to account for a large number of factors—such as neighborhood, place of residence, reason for stop, day and month of stop, time of day of stop, state of vehicle registration, validity of the driver’s license, and number and age of occupants in vehicle—that can confound whether the differences we see in post-stop outcomes are actually the result of racial bias. When we conduct the propensity-score weighting analysis of poststop decisions, we find the following: • Black drivers who were stopped were slightly more likely to have their stops exceed 10 minutes, compared to similarly situated nonblack drivers who were stopped. • There was no racial difference in the percentage of stops lasting more than 30 minutes when comparing black drivers to similarly situated nonblack drivers. • Black drivers were less likely to receive a citation than were similarly situated nonblack drivers. • Officers were less likely to conduct a high-discretion search, such as a consent search, of a black driver than of a similarly situated nonblack driver. • When searched, black and nonblack drivers were equally likely to be found in possession of contraband. If we do not limit the compared drivers to those in similar situations, we do find large differences. For example, officers more frequently search black drivers than nonblack drivers (13 percent versus 6 percent). While this disparity is largely due to differences in when, where, and why the stops occurred, these differences in experience can shape black drivers’ views of CPD officers. Conclusions and Implications Although we found no evidence of racial differences between the stops of black and those of similarly situated nonblack drivers, there are issues that can exacerbate the perception of racial bias. First, for each year of analysis, we find several officers who stop substantially more black drivers than their peers do. These represent a small fraction of CPD officers, and, as noted in the document, CPD has the capability to monitor, manage, and address issues that these officers may present to the department and the community. Second, although black and similarly situated nonblack drivers have similar stop outcomes, the burden of policing falls disproportionately on black residents, even though nonblack drivers have similar stop outcomes. There are still substantial gaps between how black and nonblack residents view CPD. As noted in last year’s RAND report (Ridgeway, Schell, Gifford, et al., 2009), the improvements that have been seen over the life of the collaborative agreement may be fragile. It will require a continued and concerted effort on the part of CPD and community leaders to maintain progress toward the goals stated in the collaborative agreement, as well as to prevent reversals in the positive trends that we observed while this agreement was in force. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009. 93p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 17, 2018 at: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG914.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG914.pdf Shelf Number: 117100 Keywords: Police BehaviorPolice-Community RelationsRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementTraffic Stops |
Author: Steward, Dwight Title: Don't Mind If I Take a Look, Do Ya? An Examination of Consent Searches and Contraband Hit Rates at Texas Traffic Stops Summary: With the passage of Texas Senate Bill 1074 (S.B. 1074) in 2001, law enforcement agencies must now annually report detailed statistics concerning the race of individuals who are stopped and searched in their jurisdictions. For this study, reports from 1,060 agencies were collected, with a focus on search and contraband data. Specifically, analyses were conducted of total search figures, consent search figures, and contraband figures to determine if racial disparities existed – if so, such would indicate the targeting of certain racial groups for selective enforcement. Particular attention was given to examining potential racial disparities in consent searches, thereby eliminating from the analysis searches which may be outside of an officer’s discretion. Analyses of search data – combined with contraband hit rate data – would also help gauge the efficiency and legitimacy of current police practices. The entire dataset collected for this study includes several million police-civilian contacts representing the majority of traffic stops in Texas. This report analyzes each contributing agency’s self-reported statistics, as well as the quality of the reports produced, in order to better inform policy leaders, law enforcement agencies, and community members as they address the problem and the perception of racial profiling. This is the largest set of racial profiling data that has ever been collected and analyzed, and it is the first inter-department review of contraband data collected by Texas law enforcement agencies. The goals of this report are three-fold: • Analyze the racial distribution of total searches, consent searches, and contraband hit rates in Texas using self-reported data submitted by police and sheriff’s departments. • Review the quality of the racial profiling data collected and reported by law enforcement agencies. • Recommend solutions to better analyze and monitor racial profiling figures and deter ineffective law enforcement practices. Key Findings include the following: (1) Texas law enforcement agencies continue to search Blacks and Latinos at higher rates than Anglos: approximately 2 out of 3 agencies reported searching Blacks and Latinos at higher rates than Anglos following a traffic stop. 66% of agencies searched Blacks at higher rates than Anglos, while 69% of agencies searched Latinos at higher rates than Anglos. (2) Of the agencies that searched Blacks at higher rates often, 7 out of 10 (71%) searched Blacks at least 50% more frequently than they searched Anglos, representing a significant disparity in treatment between Anglos and Blacks. Of the agencies that searched Latinos at higher rates, 9 out of 10 (90%) searched Latinos at least 50% more frequently than they searched Anglos, representing a significant disparity in treatment between Anglos and Latinos. (3) Consent searches – performed without any legal basis to search – contributed significantly to general search disparities: approximately 3 out of 5 agencies reported consent searching Blacks and Latinos at higher rates than Anglos following a traffic stop. 61% of agencies consent searched Blacks at higher rates than Anglos, while 59% of agencies consent searched Latinos at higher rates than Anglos. (4) Of the agencies that consent searched Blacks at higher rates often, 3 out of 4 (75%) consent searched Blacks at least 50% more frequently than they consent searched Anglos, representing a significant disparity in treatment between Anglos and Blacks. Of the agencies that consent searched Latinos at higher rates, 3 out of 4 (74%) consent searched Latinos at least 50% more frequently than they consent searched Anglos, representing a significant disparity in treatment between Anglos and Latinos. (5) Patterns of over-searching Blacks and Latinos are consistent. Approximately 3 out of 4 agencies that searched Blacks at higher rates than Anglos also searched Latinos at higher rates than Anglos (75%), while 3 out of 5 agencies that consent searched Blacks at higher rates than Anglos also consent searched Latinos at higher rates than Anglos (61%). (6) Of the agencies that searched Blacks at higher rates, 51% were likely to find contraband in the possession of Anglos at higher rates than Blacks – meaning Anglos and Blacks were equally likely to be found with contraband. Of the agencies that searched Latinos at higher rates, 58% were likely to find contraband in the possession of Anglos at higher rates than Latinos – meaning Anglos were slightly more likely than Latinos to be found with contraband. (7) Racial disparities in search rates appear to be growing. Approximately 3 out of 5 agencies reported searching Blacks or Latinos at higher rates in 2003 than 2002 (60%). Note: this figure includes agencies with any increase in rates for Blacks or Latinos from 2002 to 2003. (8) The vast majority of agencies provided no mitigating information or insight to explain disparate search rates between Anglos and minorities, nor did contraband hit rates suggest efficient law enforcement practices were being utilized. (9) Auditing of data is non-existent or unreliable. Over half of agencies did not report using any data auditing procedures or audio-video review to ensure against human errors, technical errors, or data falsification. (10) Imprecision in both data quality and reporting restricts the usefulness of analysis. Ultimately, the lack of a generally accepted uniform reporting standard limited the accuracy of analysis involved for some reports filed by law enforcement agencies. Initial findings show that Blacks and Latinos in Texas communities are more likely to be searched, though Anglos are equally likely or more likely to be found with contraband during searches. High minority search rates are particularly evident in the area of consent searches – where searches cannot be explained by outside factors such as probable cause or outstanding warrants. Without some explanation of mitigating factors by law enforcement agencies, this would indicate that police are not only engaging in race-based policing but are ineffectively and inefficiently utilizing law enforcement resources. Agencies should identify and authenticate legitimate law enforcement practices that may be contributing to racial disparities in their data. Furthermore, in the absence of an explanation for disparate search and contraband rates, law enforcement leadership and policy-makers should take steps to monitor and reduce race-based policing. Details: Austin, TX: Texas Criminal Justice Colition, 2005. 56p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 20, 2011 at: http://www.criminaljusticecoalition.org/files/userfiles/publicsafety/racial_profiling_report_2005.pdf Year: 2005 Country: United States URL: http://www.criminaljusticecoalition.org/files/userfiles/publicsafety/racial_profiling_report_2005.pdf Shelf Number: 121457 Keywords: Consent SearchesContrabandIllegal GoodsPolice DiscretionRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling (Texas)Search and SeizureTraffic Stops |
Author: Worden, Robert E. Title: Stops by Syracuse Police, 2006-2009 Summary: For the past decade, elected and appointed officials in many states and countless cities have expressed concerns about racially biased policing, or racial profiling. The central concern is that police use citizens’ race as the partial or complete basis for the discretionary application of their authority, particularly in making traffic stops, but also in making other stops and in poststop decisions as well (e.g., to conduct a search or frisk). Although attention to potential racial bias in policing dates historically to at least the 1960s, it was given renewed impetus and new focus by litigation in Maryland and New Jersey in the 1990s, which successfully claimed that state police targeted racial minorities for traffic stops. Contemporary concern has in many places taken the form of the collection and analysis of data on stops by police, as it has in Syracuse, where local legislation mandated data collection in 2001. Earlier this year, we volunteered to analyze the Syracuse Police Department’s data on stops. Here we report our results. First we describe the nature of the stops – the reasons for the stops, as officers recorded them, the spatial and temporal distributions of the stops (that is, where in the city they occur and at what times of the day), the characteristics of the people who are stopped (that is, their race, sex, and age), and for the most recent year, the assignments of the officers who made the stops (to the traffic division, Crime Reduction Teams, or other units). Then we present analysis that is designed to provide clues about whether the stops reflect a racial bias. This is of course the primary goal of any such analysis, but drawing inferences about the source(s) of any racial disparities from data of this kind confronts monumental analytic challenges. Such clues would, ideally, emerge from a comparison of the characteristics of the people stopped by the police with the characteristics of the people who could have been legitimately stopped by the police; any discrepancies between the former and the latter would suggest that police stops were influenced by factors other than the behavior of the citizens involved. Unfortunately, however, complete information on the latter population, which represents a suitable “benchmark,” is practically impossible to come by; this is the benchmarking problem in analyses of racial bias in police stops. Details: Albany, NY: The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., 2010. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 26, 2011 at: http://finninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Stops-by-Syracuse-Police.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://finninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Stops-by-Syracuse-Police.pdf Shelf Number: 121502 Keywords: Police DiscretionRacial DiscriminationRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementTraffic Stops |
Author: Lovrich, Nicholas P. Title: Results of the Monitoring of WSP Traffic Stops for Biased Policing: Analysis of WSP Stop, Citation, Search and Use of Force Data and Results of the Use of Observational Studies for Denominator Assessment Summary: This report prepared under the auspices of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Grant-Funded Study on Racial Profiling Phenomena in Washington State [OGRD # 107828] sets forth findings derived from the independent monitoring of traffic stop data collected by the WSP. This report contains the results of an analysis of traffic stops, traffic citations, searches and use of force for evidence of biased policing. Our analysis of agency data is carried out both at the statewide and individual Autonomous Patrol Area (APA) levels. Our analysis indicates very few instances of noteworthy minority/non-minority disparities in the use of police discretion by the officers of the Washington State Patrol. Most importantly, there is no evidence of a systematic practice of racial profiling in either who is stopped, who is issued a citation, who is searched, and to whom force is applied by WSP officers. In addition to these substantive findings, this report also contains findings derived from a testing of the utility of racial coded traffic collision data as a “denominator” for racial profiling assessments by means of three observational studies conducted with digital photography. Those results indicate that collision data are likely to represent a reliable and cost-effective indicator of driver population demographics, making the monitoring of racial profiling an affordable practice in nearly all police jurisdictions. Details: Pullman, WA: Washington State University, Division of Governmental Studies and Services, 2007. 70p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 27, 2012 at: http://www.wsp.wa.gov/publications/reports/wsu_2007_report.pdf Year: 2007 Country: United States URL: http://www.wsp.wa.gov/publications/reports/wsu_2007_report.pdf Shelf Number: 124297 Keywords: Racial Profiling (Washington State)Racial Profiling in Law EnforcementTraffic Stops |
Author: Perez, Thomas E. Title: United States' Investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Summary: We write to report the findings of the Civil Rights Division's investigation into civil rights violations by the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office ("MCSO"). Our initial inquiry began in June 2008, and the investigation has focused on MCSO's compliance with the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141 ("Section 14141"), and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7 and its implementing regulations at 28 C.F.R. § 42.101 et seq. ("Title VI"). Section 14141 prohibits law enforcement agencies, such as MCSO, from engaging in activities that amount to a pattern or practice of violating the Constitution or laws of the United States. Title VI and its implementing regulations provide that recipients of federal financial assistance, such as MCSO, may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin. These laws give the United States the authority to file legal action and obtain the necessary relief to ensure compliance with the Constitution and laws of the United States. We notified MCSO of our formal investigation in March 2009. During our investigation, aided by four leading police practice experts, one jail expert, and an expert on statistical analysis, we reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documentary evidence; toured MCSO'sjails; and interviewed over 400 individuals, including approximately 150 former and current MCSO jail inmates, and more than 75 former and current MCSO personnel, including the Sheriff, the Chief of Enforcement, the Chief of Patrol, the Administrative Investigative Commander, the Sergeant heading MCSO's Criminal Employment Squad, and the Lieutenant heading MCSO's Human Smuggling Unit. 2Based upon our extensive investigation, we find reasonable cause to believe that MCSO engages in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing. Specifically, we find that MCSO, through the actions of its deputies, supervisory staff, and command staff, engages in racial profiling of Latinos; unlawfully stops, detains, and arrests Latinos; and unlawfully retaliates against individuals who complain about or criticize MCSO's policies or practices, all in violation of Section 14141. MCSO's discriminatory police conduct additionally violates Title VI and its implementing regulations. We also find reasonable cause to believe that MCSO operates its jails in a manner that discriminates against its limited English proficient ("LEP") Latino inmates. Specifically, we find that MCSO, through the actions of its deputies, detention officers, supervisory staff, and command staff, routinely punishes Latino LEP inmates for failing to understand commands given in English and denies them critical services provided to the other inmates, all in violation of Title VI and its implementing regulations. The absence of clear policies and procedures to ensure effective and constitutional policing, along with the deviations from widely accepted policing and correctional practices, and the failure to implement meaningful oversight and accountability structures, have contributed to a chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations. In addition to the formal findings noted above, we have identified three additional areas of serious concern that, while not warranting a formal pattern or practice finding at this time, require further investigation. First, our investigation revealed a number of troubling incidents involving MCSO deputies using excessive force against Latinos. Second, we observed that MCSO has implemented its immigration enforcement program in a way that has created a "wall of distrust" between MCSO officers and Maricopa County's Latino residents-a wall of distrust that has significantly compromised MCSO's ability to provide police protection to Maricopa County's Latino residents? Third, we have expanded our investigation to encompass a review of serious allegations that MCSO failed to investigate a large number of sex crimes. Given the systemic nature ofMCSO's constitutional violations, effective resolution of this matter will require the development of a comprehensive written agreement along with federal judicial oversight. We prefer to resolve this matter without resort to further litigation, although we will not hesitate to file suit, if necessary. We would like to immediately begin a constructive dialogue about comprehensive and sustainable ways to remedy the identified violations of the Constitution and federal law. Please let us know by close of business on January 4,2012, ifMCSO is interested in having this dialogue. IfMCSO is not interested or if we deem that MCSO is not engaged in good-faith efforts to achieve compliance by voluntary means, we are prepared to file a civil action to compel compliance. In the remainder of this letter, we highlight our factual and legal findings, broadly describe our investigation ofMCSO's practices, provide an outline of our factual findings in sufficient detail to give you fair notice of the violations committed, briefly discuss how those 3factual findings relate to MCSO's violations of federal law, and outline the remedial measures MCSO must undertake to comply with the law. Details: Washington, DC: Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 2011. 22p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 11, 2012 at http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/mcso_findletter_12-15-11.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/mcso_findletter_12-15-11.pdf Shelf Number: 124464 Keywords: Correctional Institutions (Arizona)Police Behavior (Arizona)Racial ProfilingTraffic Stops |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois Title: Racial Disparity in Consent Searches and Dog Sniff Searches: An analysis of Illinois traffic stop data from 2013 Summary: Throughout Illinois, there is a dramatic racial disparity in police use of so-called "consent searches" and dog sniff searches during routine traffic stops. This is shown by a decade of government data about consent searches collected and published under the Illinois Traffic Stop Statistical Study Act of 2003 ("Study Act"), and the first two years of such data regarding dog sniff searches. For example, the recently published 2013 data shows that Illinois State Police ("ISP") troopers are 2 1/2 times more likely to consent search Hispanic motorists compared to white motorists, but white motorists are 2 1/2 times more likely than Hispanic motorists to be found with contraband during such ISP searches. Likewise, ISP troopers are more than twice as likely to dog sniff Hispanic motorists compared to white motorists, yet white motorists are 64% more likely than Hispanic motorists to be found with contraband during a trooper's search based on a dog alert. These disparities are a clear sign that the ISP's threshold to conduct consent searches and dog sniff searches is far lower for Hispanic motorists than for white motorists. Such racial disparate impact against black and Hispanic motorists likewise exists statewide, and in stops by the Chicago Police Department and other local and county police agencies. This ACLU of Illinois report begins with a brief discussion of the Study Act, upon which this report is based. It then presents findings of substantial and ongoing racial disparate impact in the use of consent searches and dog sniff searches during routine traffic stops. Details: Chicago: ACLU of Illinois, 2014. 7p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 30, 2015 at: http://www.aclu-il.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ACLU-IL-report-re-ITSSSA-data-in-2013.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.aclu-il.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ACLU-IL-report-re-ITSSSA-data-in-2013.pdf Shelf Number: 135431 Keywords: Dog Sniff Searches (Illinois)Police DogsPolice Policies and PracticesRacial DisparitiesStop and SearchTraffic Stops |
Author: Taniguchi, Travis A. Title: A test of racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Raleigh Police Department Summary: Recent research has raised questions regarding the Raleigh Police Department's (RPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. News reports going back to 2000 make claims of racial bias based on the disparity between the racial composition of stopped motorists and the racial composition of the city (Associated Press, 2000). Critically, these kinds of analyses typically use census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. Therefore, census population cannot accurately measure the population at risk (i.e., the driving population that is likely to be involved in a traffic stop). RTI International conducted a series of analyses to address this methodological limitation. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic. Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 6p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_raleigh_final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_raleigh_final.pdf Shelf Number: 138322 Keywords: Racial BiasRacial ProfilingRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementStop and SearchTraffic Stops |
Author: Taniguchi, Travis A. Title: Exploring racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Durham Police Department Summary: Recent research has generated questions regarding the Durham Police Department's (DPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. For example, Baumgartner and Epp's (2012) analysis of DPD traffic stop data suggested racial bias in traffic enforcement. Critically, Baumgartner and Epp used census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and therefore serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. The DPD, in an effort to promote transparency and achieve an improved understanding of its operations and their impact on the community, provided RTI International with access to 6 years of traffic stop data. In turn, RTI proposed a series of analyses that would address the methodological limitations noted above. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic. The study was conducted independently, and the DPD provided no financial support for the project. Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 23p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_durham_final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_durham_final.pdf Shelf Number: 138323 Keywords: Racial BiasRacial Profiling Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Stop and Search Traffic Stops |
Author: Taniguchi, Travis A. Title: A test of racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Fayetteville Police Department Summary: Recent research has generated questions regarding the Fayetteville Police Department's (FPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. A recent New York Times article highlighted the racial disproportionality in traffic stops in both Greensboro and Fayetteville (LaFraniere & Lehren, 2015). Critically, these kinds of analyses typically use census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. Therefore, census population cannot accurately measure the population at risk (i.e., the driving population that is likely to be involved in a traffic stop). RTI International conducted a series of analyses to address this methodological limitation. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic. Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 5p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_fayetteville_final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_fayetteville_final.pdf Shelf Number: 138324 Keywords: Racial BiasRacial Profiling Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Stop and Search Traffic Stops |
Author: Taniguchi, Travis A. Title: A test of racial disproportionality in traffic stops conducted by the Greensboro Police Department Summary: Recent research has generated questions regarding the Greensboro Police Department's (GPD) use of race as a proxy for criminal behavior. For example, a recent New York Times article highlighted the racial disproportionality in traffic stops in Greensboro (LaFraniere & Lehren, 2015). Critically, these kinds of analyses typically use census population estimates to establish a benchmark for the driving population. Census estimates, however, demonstrate only where people reside and serve as a poor proxy for the actual driving population. Therefore, census population cannot accurately measure the population at risk (i.e., the driving population that is likely to be involved in a traffic stop). RTI International conducted a series of analyses to address this methodological limitation. This research was funded internally by RTI to serve the community and to contribute to a growing body of scientific research on this topic. Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2016. 6p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2016 at: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_greensboro_final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.rti.org/pubs/vod_greensboro_final.pdf Shelf Number: 138325 Keywords: Racial BiasRacial Profiling Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Stop and Search Traffic Stops |
Author: Denbeaux, Mark P. Title: Racial Profiling Report: Bloomfield Police and Bloomfield Municipal Court Summary: Seton Hall Law School's Center for Policy & Research selected Bloomfield, New Jersey as a setting for a study of potential racial profiling in its police practices. The results revealed a persistent and disproportionate representation of African Americans and Latinos in the courtroom as compared to their representation in either Bloomfield itself or in the State of New Jersey. Bloomfield, New Jersey is, in many ways, demographically representative of New Jersey itself. According to the most recent census data available, its population of 47,315 is roughly 60% white, 18.5% African American, and 24.5% Latino. In comparison, New Jersey's population is 68.6% white, 13.7% African American, and 17.7% Latino. Bloomfield is ringed on the north, east and west by towns that resemble its demographic makeup. Bloomfield's southern border, however, is a different story: Newark is 26.3% white, 52.3% African American and 33.8% Latino; East Orange is 4% white, 88.5% African American and 7.9% Latino. The study entailed hundreds of observations of court appearances for traffic offenses and a small number of other minor offenses in Bloomfield Municipal Court, conducted by a team of trained Seton Hall Law School students for 70 hours over the course of a month. Students also scrutinized a database of 9,715 tickets issued to unique drivers in Bloomfield during a 12-month period immediately preceding the courtroom observations. The individuals with Spanish surnames who were cited in the Bloomfield ticket database closely approximated the Latino percentage observed in court appearances. Given the demographics of both Bloomfield and New Jersey generally, the expected representation in the courtroom would have been around 60% white. Strikingly, the observers reported the inverse, plus: instead of 60% white, African-Americans and Latinos accounted for an astounding 78% of court appearances (43% African American, 35% Latino, 20% White, and 2% other) (n=799). Remarkably, this racial disproportion was found not only across the board but in various subgroupings - including Bloomfield itself whose African American and Latino residents accounted for 73% of Bloomfield residents observed before the court, as compared with only 24% white. Similarly, a racial disproportion in ticketing also existed across the five predominantly white border towns. Although the numbers are small (n=39), 64% of those with residences in the predominantly white border towns were African American or Latino while only 33% were white. Much of the explanation for the racial distribution of tickets is undoubtedly due to the issuance of citations to residents of the cities of Newark and East Orange. The borders of these cities with Bloomfield were overwhelmingly targeted by the Bloomfield Police. To determine areas of police targeting, the database of tickets from the year immediately prior to the observation aspect of the study, was also analyzed for patrolling patterns. Where it could be determined where the traffic stop occurred (which was in some 67% of the cases), the overwhelming majority -- 88.33% -- were in the third of Bloomfield nearest to Newark and East Orange. Added to the courtroom observation data showing a greatly disproportionate number of tickets issued to African Americans and Latinos (78%), this pattern of citations compels the conclusion that African Americans and Latinos are, collectively, Bloomfield Police's target group. Indeed, Bloomfield Police policing patterns suggest a de facto "border patrol." By plotting out ticket incidence and frequency, one can see what essentially amounts to a "wall" of police erected against the Newark and East Orange border areas and their predominantly African American and Latino residents. This pattern of police citations also resulted in a dramatic subsidy of Bloomfield by African American and Latinos, in large part from residents of Newark and East Orange. For each individual charged, the average cost was $137 plus any surcharges imposed. That suggests that, for African Americans and Latinos, as a group, 7,566 tickets and a total paid to Bloomfield Municipal Court of more than $1,000,000. From the residents of East Orange and Newark who, at 29% of the observed total, received 2,910 tickets, Bloomfield Municipal Court would have received nearly $400,000. The annual budget of the Court is about $500,000, suggesting a substantial "profit" from this pattern of law enforcement, most of it from nonresidents of Bloomfield, and heavily weighted on the backs of African Americans and Latinos as a group. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Municipal Court's budgeted salaries were projected to have more than doubled in 2015, from $350,600 in 2014 to an estimated $760,794 in 2015. Details: Newark, NJ: Seton Hall University School of Law, Center for Policy and Research, 2016. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 20, 2016 at: Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 138701 Keywords: Bias Racial DisparitiesRacial ProfilingRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementRacismTraffic Stops |
Author: Simoiu, Camelia Title: Testing for Racial Discrimination in Police Searches of Motor Vehicles Summary: In the course of conducting traffic stops, officers have discretion to search motorists for drugs, weapons, and other contraband. There is concern that these search decisions are prone to racial bias, but it has proven difficult to rigorously assess claims of discrimination. Here we develop a new statistical method-the threshold test-to test for racial discrimination in motor vehicle searches. We use geographic variation in stop outcomes to infer the e↵ective race-specific standards of evidence that officers apply when deciding whom to search, an approach we formalize with a hierarchical Bayesian latent variable model. This technique mitigates the problems of omitted variables and infra-marginality associated with benchmark and outcome tests for discrimination. On a dataset of 4.5 million police stops in North Carolina, we find that the standard for searching black and Hispanic drivers is considerably lower than the standard for searching white and Asian drivers, a pattern that holds consistently across the 100 largest police departments in the state. Details: Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2016. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 30, 2016 at: https://5harad.com/papers/threshold-test.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://5harad.com/papers/threshold-test.pdf Shelf Number: 140099 Keywords: Racial BiasRacial ProfilingRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementStop and SearchTraffic Stops |
Author: Lee, Jungmin Title: The Racial Profiling Act: How Does it Work? Summary: This study examines how the racial profiling law influences police officers' behavior in the field. A ubiquitous component of the law across jurisdictions in the U.S. is to mandate the collection of data on traffic stops and evaluate local agencies based on the data. Using the Illinois traffic stop data from 2004 to 2007, we find that officers in agencies that received unfavorable evaluations in the previous official report tend to stop fewer vehicles, particularly, those of minority drivers, and are more responsive to their unfavorable evaluations when the nearest neighbor agency received some favorable evaluations. However, we argue that this behavioral change does not necessarily mean a reduction of racially-biased law enforcement actions. Details: Seoul, South Korea; Department of Economics, Sogang University, 2012. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 31, 2016 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1988570 Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1988570 Shelf Number: 140108 Keywords: Bias Racial Disparities Racial Profiling Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Racism Traffic Stops |
Author: Baumgartner, Frank R. Title: Racial Disparities in Traffic Stop Outcomes Summary: In American politics, the issue of racial disparity is never far from the surface, in particular as it relates to encounters with the police. We are currently in a period when – thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement – the behavior of police officers toward minorities is receiving intense scrutiny. As usual, Americans are deeply divided on the issue: where one side perceives injustice and violence toward black bodies, the other focuses on the difficulties of law enforcement and the need to respect those in blue. Our current focus on race and justice is all too familiar, but this most recent surge in attention to these issues offers perhaps a special promise of progress because our abilities to document citizen interactions with police have never been better. First, almost everyone today has a video camera on their cell phone, allowing them to film their interactions with police officers. It is much harder to dismiss a victim's claims of police misconduct when footage of the incident is posted on Facebook for the world to see. Second, increasing numbers of police departments are mandating the use of dash cameras and body cameras for police cars and police officers. Third, we now have access to extensive databases of police traffic stops that record the demographic information of stopped motorists alongside information about what transpired during the stop. Efforts to collect this type of data were put in place during the last wave of attention toward "driving while black" disparities in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Figure 1 shows the surge of attention as well as its later decline. During the time when attention to the concept of "driving while black" or "driving while brown" surged, a number of states passed laws for the first time mandating the collection of data on routine traffic stops. They sought to document any racial disparities that were alleged to be occurring so that the phenomenon could be either dismissed, if the data revealed there was no such thing, or better understood so that solutions could be implemented if the data showed that allegations were indeed accurate. The figure shows that attention has declined, but a new wave of attention to police violence, based on shootings of unarmed black men has of course kept police-minority relations in the headlines. One major difference between the 1990s and today was mentioned above: video confirmation. Another is data, which is our focus here. Details: Chapel Hill, NC: Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 2, 2017 at: https://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/articles/BaumgartnerEtAl-2017-DukeForum-RacialDisparitiesInTrafficStops.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/articles/BaumgartnerEtAl-2017-DukeForum-RacialDisparitiesInTrafficStops.pdf Shelf Number: 141302 Keywords: Body-Worn CamerasRacial DisparitiesRacial ProfilingRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementStop and SearchTraffic Stops |
Author: Gideon's Army Title: Driving While Black: A report on racial profiling in Metro Nashville Police Department Traffic Stops Summary: Our report shows that "driving while black" constitutes a unique series of risks, vulnerabilities, and dangers at the hands of the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) that white drivers do not experience in the same way. Upon reviewing MNPD’s traffic stop database, our report finds that: • Between 2011-2015, MNPD conducted 7.7 times more traffic stops annually than the U.S. national average • Between 2011-2015, MNPD made more stops of black people than there were black people 16 years old and over living in Davidson County • Between 2011-2015, MNPD consistently and unnecessarily stopped and searched black drivers in predominantly black, Hispanic, and low-income communities at rates substantially higher than they did white drivers in predominantly middle to upper income communities • MNPD consent searches are invasive and fail to yield incriminating evidence 88.4% of the time. • Evidence of unlawful activity is found during searches of white drivers more often than in searches of black and Hispanic drivers • Nearly 80% of all MNPD traffic stops in 2015 result in a warning, and, in traffic stops including a search of the vehicle or driver, between one-third and half result in a warning, which means hundreds of thousands of drivers are being stopped and searched unnecessarily every year • Since 2012, Operation Safer Streets (OSS) has resulted in more than 58,000 vehicle stops and 11,000 arrests, the vast majority of which were concentrated in communities of color. More than 90% of OSS arrests were for misdemeanors, often for possession of small amounts of marijuana or driving without a license, and more than 80% of stops yielded no evidence that warranted arrest. Our interviews with black drivers in Nashville show that: • Metro police officers regularly intimidate, harass, and unfairly exert their authority over black drivers • Aggressive tactics by officers result in traumatizing experiences of fear for one’s safety and the safety of one’s family and friends • Black drivers experience anger at being treated unjustly and disrespectfully, frustration derived from being profiled because of one's race and its assumed correspondence to criminality, and the feeling that police do not "serve and protect" black people like they do white people Through these findings, our report shows that MNPD's traffic stop practices impose a severe disparate or discriminatory impact on the predominantly black and low-income communities that MNPD’s traffic stop and search regime disproportionately targets. MNPD's internal reports justify these disparities based on an alleged correlation between where stops are made and the number of crime reports in the area. However, our findings show that traffic enforcement targets and impacts entire communities, not just people who commit crimes, and that regardless of the area, black people are searched at much higher rates than white people. For these reasons, racial disparities in policing are unlikely to be caused by individual officers’ behaviors alone, but by institutional norms and policies that justify targeting predominantly black and low-income communities. The MNPD traffic stop lesson plan used as part of officer training shows that the department is primarily focused on using traffic stops as a way to gain entry into vehicles and search them (See Section II). In practice, this means making pretextual traffic stops for technicalities, such as rolling through a stop sign or having a broken taillight, in order to get an opportunity to make contact with the occupants, use manipulative forms of engagement to gain consent to search, and search drivers and their vehicles. While the lesson plan does not explicitly prioritize stops and searches of black drivers, MNPD disproportionately deploys its patrol officers to predominantly black and low-income communities, and as our report shows, black drivers are more likely than white drivers to be stopped, stopped multiple times in a year, and searched during a traffic stop, even though searches of black drivers are less successful in yielding criminal evidence than are searches of white drivers. MNPD's overwhelmingly unsuccessful and disparately impactful over-policing of predominantly black and low-income communities raises serious concerns about the effectiveness, legitimacy, and constitutionality of MNPD's traffic stop and search regime. Furthermore, the fact that Nashville's unnecessarily high rate of total traffic stops does not reduce traffic accidents and injuries (Finding 1) and does not appear to make any significant impact on crime rates compared to other cities making fewer stops (Demand 1) calls MNPD's policing strategies into question both legally and ethically. The core findings of our report analyze traffic stops of black, white, and Hispanic drivers. Details: Nashville, TN: Gideon's Army, 2016. 213p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 23, 2017 at: https://drivingwhileblacknashville.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/driving-while-black-gideons-army.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://drivingwhileblacknashville.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/driving-while-black-gideons-army.pdf Shelf Number: 144558 Keywords: Driving While BlackRacial DisparitiesRacial ProfilingRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementStop and SearchTraffic StopsTraffic Violations |
Author: Armentrout, Megan Title: Cops and Stops: Racial Profiling and a Preliminary Statistical Analysis of Los Angeles Police Department Traffic Stops and Searches Summary: With data collection efforts underway in over 45 states, racial profiling in police practice is an issue of national concern. This study focuses on Los Angeles because of its diverse racial composition and the large quantity of data collected by the Los Angeles Police Department. Under a consent decree with the United States Department of Justice, the Los Angeles Police Department is required to make this data available. Using records for over 600,000 traffic stops, we analyze racial disparities found in stop and search rates. Logistic regression models are used to determine which variables are significantly related to disparities in search rates and other police practices. Based on our findings, the possibility of racial profiling cannot be ruled out. Details: Pomona, CA: California State Polytechnic University Pomona, 2007. 43p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 2, 2017 at: http://www.public.asu.edu/~etcamach/AMSSI/reports/copsnstops.pdf Year: 2007 Country: United States URL: http://www.public.asu.edu/~etcamach/AMSSI/reports/copsnstops.pdf Shelf Number: 145235 Keywords: Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Stop and Search Traffic Stops |
Author: Ash, Elliott Title: Local Public Finance and Discriminatory Policing: Evidence from Traffic Stops in Missouri Summary: This paper provides evidence of racial variation in local governments' traffic enforcement responses to budget stress using data from policing agencies in the state of Missouri for the years 2001 through 2014. Like previous studies, we find that local budget stress is associated with higher citation rates. In addition, we find that there is an increase in traffic-stop arrests. However, we find that these effects are concentrated among white (rather than black or Hispanic) drivers. This statistical difference is robust to the inclusion of a range of covariates for traffic stops and to the inclusion of local population features interacted with year. These results are consistent with a model where traffic police selectively target higher-income drivers to compensate for budget stress. Also consistent with this view, we find that the racial difference in citation and arrest rates is highest where the white-to-black income ratio is highest. Details: Columbia Public Law Research Paper, 2018. 29p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 12, 2018 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3192562 Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: file:///C:/Users/AuthUser/Downloads/SSRN-id3192562.pdf Shelf Number: 151485 Keywords: Law EnforcementPolicingRacial DisparitiesTraffic Stops |
Author: Ristroph, Alice Title: The Constitution of Police Violence Summary: Police force is again under scrutiny in the United States. Several recent killings of black men by police officers have prompted an array of reform proposals, most of which seem to assume that these recent killings were not (or should not be) authorized and legal. Our constitutional doctrine suggests otherwise. From the 1960s to the present, federal courts have persistently endorsed a very expansive police authority to make seizures - to stop persons, to arrest them, and to use force if the arrestee resists. This Article reveals the full scope of this seizure authority. Of particular importance are the concepts of resistance and compliance. Demands for compliance with officers, and a condemnation of resistance that authorizes police to meet resistance with violence, run throughout constitutional doctrine. Ostensibly race-neutral, the duty of compliance has in fact been distributed along racial lines, and may be contrasted with a privilege of resistance (also race-specific) elsewhere protected in American law. Tracing resistance and compliance helps reveal the ways in which the law distributes risks of violence, and it may help inspire proposals to reduce and redistribute those risks. Details: Unpublished paper, 2016. 58p. Source: Internet Resource: Seton Hall Public Law Research Paper: Accessed January 28, 2019 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2847300 Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2847300 Shelf Number: 154406 Keywords: Fourth AmendmentPolice Deadly ForcePolice Use of ForcePolice ViolenceRacial Profiling in Law EnforcementRacismStop and SearchTraffic Stops |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union Title: Racism in the Rear View Mirror: Illinois Traffic Stop Data 2015-2017 Summary: INTRODUCTION Illinois law enforcement agencies are required to document data on traffic stops, pursuant to the Illinois Traffic and Pedestrian Stop Statistical Study Act ("the Study Act"). This data collection includes the driver's race, why the driver was stopped, whether a search was conducted, whether contraband was found, and the outcome of the stop (e.g., a citation). More than 900 law enforcement agencies across the state collect and report data, and the Illinois Department of Transportation ("IDOT") makes it publicly available annually. For further background on the statutory requirements and legislative history of the Study Act, see the Appendix. This data provides insight into the effectiveness and consequences of certain law enforcement tactics; gives agencies an opportunity to evaluate their own departments; and allows law enforcement leaders to compare themselves to other agencies across the state. This report is a resource for government officials and the public: It calls attention to racial disparities in traffic stops and searches from 2015 to 2017, and provides recommendations to improve public trust in law enforcement. In those three years, Illinois law enforcement officers made nearly 6.5 million traffic stops and performed more than 283,000 searches. The results of these stops and searches shed light on whether officers were fairly enforcing traffic laws. The data shows that law enforcement officers throughout the state of Illinois continue to stop Black and Latinx drivers at rates beyond their representation in the driving population and continue to perform searches of Black and Latinx drivers at higher rates than white drivers. In short, biased policing continues to be a problem in Illinois. This report is enhanced by the work of data scientists and engineers who created a website with interactive, visual representations of data for every law enforcement agency in Illinois that reported data in 2017. To further explore this data, please visit illinoistrafficstops.com. As a result of these findings, our key recommendation is that the Study Act be made permanent. The Study Act is currently scheduled to end in 2019 and the ACLU calls on Illinois legislators to recognize the ongoing value in providing transparent, easily accessible data to the public and law enforcement agencies. Details: Chicago, IL: American Civil Liberties Union, 2019. 18p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 3, 2019 at: https://www.aclu-il.org/en/publications/racism-rear-view-mirror Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://www.aclu-il.org/sites/default/files/racism_in_the_rear_view_mirror_il_traffic_stops_2015-2017.pdf Shelf Number: 154755 Keywords: Biased Policing Illinois Illinois Traffic and Pedestrian Stop Statistical SLaw Enforcement Policing Racial Disparities Racism Searches Study Act Traffic Stops |