Analysis: More police stops for black drivers
Findings appear to confirm elevated risk of ‘driving while black’
Black drivers in some of California’s largest cities are stopped and searched by police at higher rates than white and Latino motorists, according to a new state analysis.
The state Department of Justice report, released Thursday, found that black people accounted for 15% of all stops examined in California, though they make up only about 6% of the state population, according to U.S. census figures. White and Latino drivers were stopped at rates proportional to population estimates. Police were most likely to stop black men they perceived as being between the ages of 25 and 34.
The findings, the first scrutiny of racial bias in police stops released under a 2015 state law, appear to largely confirm what independent researchers and black drivers long have discussed: “Driving while black” represents an elevated risk of a law enforcement encounter.
A Los Angeles Times investigation last year found that Los Angeles police in the Metropolitan Division stopped black drivers at a rate nearly five times their share of the city population, prompting Mayor Eric Garcetti and community activists to call for reforms. Other investigations have found similar disparities in Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose and in cities across the country.
“For the first time ever, Californians have comprehensive racial and identity data on each stop and search conducted by police officers at the largest law enforcement agencies in the state,” said Sahar Durali, director of Litigation and Policy at Neigh
borhood Legal Services of Los Angeles and a member of the statewide board that advised on the data collection. “This is a critical first step in the fight to end racial profiling.”
The data included details for vehicle and pedestrian stops of 1.8 million people at the state’s eight largest law enforcement agencies for a six-month period from July 2018 through December 2018.
The California Highway Patrol, a statewide agency charged with safeguarding highways, conducted the most stops, pulling over more than 1 million drivers. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles Police Department combined stopped more than 470,000 drivers. The San Diego Sheriff’s Department, San Diego Police Department, Riverside Sheriff’s Department, San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and San Francisco Police Department also contributed statistics.
The data was collected as part of the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015, signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Though it is the third annual report released under the mandate, it is the first to contain the stop data. The law will require every law enforcement agency in the state to collect and report profiling data by 2023.
Police also searched black drivers at a rate nearly three times that of white motorists, the report found. About 6% of white drivers were searched after a stop, and nearly 10% of all drivers were similarly checked. But the rate jumped to nearly 19% for black drivers, the highest percentage for any racial category examined.
Researchers have warned that stop and search data alone do not confirm bias in policing. To analyze why and how officers conduct stops, the report also looked at how often officers found contraband or evidence after a search.
“Search yield” data can help ferret out bias if data shows that a certain demographic is searched more often than others, but with fewer instances of contraband being found. The figures released Thursday found that officers were most likely to find contraband when searching white drivers. Law enforcement searches of people of color turned up contraband at lower rates.
The report also found a disparity in consequences. Though white drivers were more likely than black motorists to receive citations, they are less likely to be arrested. Black drivers were cited in about 37% of stops and arrested in about 15% of incidents. White drivers were arrested in about 11% of stops. Overall, drivers perceived as of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent were most likely to receive a ticket, with more than 60% being cited after a stop, compared with about half of white drivers.
Melina Abdullah, a Cal State L.A. professor and Black Lives Matter organizer who has been an outspoken critic of law enforcement, said the stops are “an albatross around (the) necks” of black people, leading to community mistrust, large fines, increased insurance rates and incarceration.
“The experience of driving while black has not changed,” Abdullah said. “The recognition that it is part of black life … is a constant weight.”