Racial Differences in Traffic Stops and Stop and Frisks

Published by rachels | Filed under Crime and Violence, Government

One of the great debates about racial discrimination revolves around police and community relations and in particular racial profiling.  In response to such concerns the federal government, and some state and local governments have started collecting data on police interaction with the public. 

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released the 2005 data on contacts between police and the public.  Of particular, interest in the data on the racial make-up of police/public contact in traffic stops.  The findings seem to be fairly consistent with past studies on racial differences in traffic stops.  Here is a summary of from the AP:

Traffic stops are the most frequent way police interact with the public, accounting for 41 percent of all contacts. An estimated 17.8 million drivers were stopped in 2005.

Black, Hispanic and white motorists were equally likely to be pulled over by police — between 8 percent and 9 percent of each group. The slight decline in blacks pulled over — from 9.2 percent in 2002 to 8.1 percent in 2005 — was not statistically significant, Durose said, and could be the result of random differences.

The racial disparities showed up after that point:

_Blacks (9.5 percent) and Hispanics (8.8 percent) were much more likely to be searched than whites (3.6 percent). There were slight but statistically insignificant declines compared with the 2002 report in the percentages of blacks and Hispanics searched.

_Blacks (4.5 percent) were more than twice as likely as whites (2.1 percent) to be arrested. Hispanic drivers were arrested 3.1 percent of the time.

Among all police-public contacts, force was used 1.6 percent of the time. But blacks (4.4 percent) and Hispanics (2.3 percent) were more likely than whites (1.2 percent) to be subjected to force or the threat of force by police officers.

People interviewed described police hitting, kicking, pushing, grabbing, pointing a gun or spraying pepper spray at them or threatening to do so. More than four of five felt the force used was excessive, but there were no statistically significant racial disparities among the people who felt that way.

This does not deal with “stop and frisk” policies, only traffic stops, and since it is a nationwide survey, it would be difficult to see what municipalities exhibited the most and least discriminatory patters.

The stop and frisk issue is important in cities like New York where many people do not drive.  The state Attorney General of New York released a report on stop and frisk searches.  For those interesting in the racial aspects of stop and frisk data, you can check out this section of the report.  The stop and frisk data is still contentious. Some worry about what is being done with personal information collected from stop and frisks, and others are concerned about delays in releasing information and the racial make-up of the people subjected to stop and frisks. (If you want to read a white racist justification for racial disparities in stop and frisks; go here.)

When you combine the data, the result do show greater scrutiny of people of color by police officers.  However, that scrutiny doesn’t always occur in the ways that we expect.  With the traffic stops, the greater scrutiny comes after the stop is made.  The data on stop and frisks need a more thorough analysis that has a national level sample and more methodological sophistication before we can make find how and why racial disparities occur.

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