MAPS FOR: Jurisdictions Collecting Data | Legislation | Litigation | Community Groups

Library and Archives

Reports

The following are traffic and pedestrian stop data collection reports that have been released by different jurisdictions and community groups. These reports are sorted by date. To view reports by jurisdiction, go to the Jurisdictions Currently Collecting Data page and click on the relevant state.

Note: This section includes only reports analyzing actual data collected by law enforcement agencies. If you are looking for a report that outlines the process of data collection analysis, analyzes racial profiling concerns and challenges in a given jurisdiction, or involves a more general discussion of data collection issues, the report will be posted elsewhere on the site.

View year: 2001 2002 2003 2004 2006

California: Vehicle Stops in San Diego: 2001. Gary Cordner. November 01, 2002.
"Report on vehicle stops in 2001, the second full year of data collection in San Diego. Since January 2001 police officers in San Diego have been required to complete a vehicle stop form each time they stop a vehicle. Data forms are entered by personnel in the police department's crime analysis unit and analyzed by outside consultants."
Colorado: 1st Annual Report Denver Police Department Contact Card Data Analysis. Dr. Deborah Thomas. October 01, 2002.
"In November 2000, The Denver Police Department began a process to proactively address the concern of racial profiling. This document presents findings from the data collected."
Iowa: Traffic Stop Practices of the Iowa City Police Department. Terry D. Edwards, Elizabeth L. Grossi, Gennaro F. Vito, and Angela D. West. June 13, 2002.
A study released by the Iowa Police Department on August 8, 2002, based on information collected from every traffic-related contact in the city between April 1 and December 31. Based on data from 9,702 contacts, 84 percent of those stopped were white. Iowa City's population is 87.3 percent white, and Johnson County's population is 90.1 percent white, according to 2000 census data. Police Chief R.J. Winkelhake said, "The data showed that non systematic action was taken by the police department based on race. That does not mean, however, that any one individual could not have been subject to this activity by an individual officer. So we need to continue to be conscious."
California: An Analysis of Traffic Stop Data in the City of Riverside. Larry K. Gaines. March 05, 2002.
California: Vehicle Stop Demographic Study. Chief William Lansdowne. March 05, 2002.
Annual report of traffic stop statistics from voluntary data collection project
Kansas: The Wichita Stop Study. Brian L. Withrow. January 01, 2002.
"In late 2000 the Wichita Police Department, with the assistance of a working group of community representatives, deisgned a comprehensive data collection effort to assess race based policing in the routine enforcement activities of its employees. In July 2001, representatives from the Wichita Police Department provided the principal investigator with a data set representing the first six month of the data collected."

ANALYSIS OF RACIAL DISPARITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT'S STOP, QUESTION, AND FRISK PRACTICES

RAND Corporation

In 2006, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) stopped a half-million pedestrians for suspected criminal involvement. Raw statistics for these encounters suggest large racial disparities — 89 percent of the stops involved nonwhites. Do these statistics point to racial bias in police officers’ decisions to stop particular pedestrians? Do they indicate that officers are particularly intrusive when stopping nonwhites? The NYPD asked the RAND Center on Quality Policing (CQP) to help it understand this issue and identify recommendations for addressing potential problems. CQP researchers analyzed data on all street encounters between NYPD officers and pedestrians in 2006. They compared the racial distribution of stops to external benchmarks, attempts to construct what the racial distribution of the stopped pedestrians would have been if officers’ stop decisions had been racially unbiased. Then they compared each officer’s stopping patterns with an internal benchmark constructed from stops in similar circumstances made by other officers. Finally, they examined stop outcomes, assessing whether stopped white and nonwhite suspects have different rates of frisk, search, use of force, and arrest. They found small racial differences in these rates and make communication, recordkeeping, and training recommendations to the NYPD for improving police-pedestrian interactions.

FLORIDA: JACKSONVILLE POLICE RECEIVE NO RACIAL PROFILING COMPLAINTS IN ’08

The Jacksonville Police Department presented its annual Racial Profiling Report which covers Calendar Year 2008 and showed that JPD received no formal reports of racial profiling. It also confirmed that local police are conducting traffic stops using legal criteria and not race as their motivation for enforcement action. Currently, the Texas Racial Profiling Law requires that police departments collect data pertaining to traffic stops, pedestrian stops, searches conducted and citations issued.

TEXAS: BELLAIRE MAYOR TO INVESTIGATE RACIAL PROFILING ALLEGATIONS

The mayor of Bellaire responded publicly for the first time to allegations of racial profiling due to an incident of mistaken identity. Officers will now be required to participate in additional cultural sensitivity training. The city is also hiring an independent state consultant to analyze traffic stop data for 2008 and look for incidents of racial profiling. The mayor also promised to release the results of the district attorney's investigation publicly, once it is completed.

CALIFORNIA: TORRANCE POLICE PROFILING SUIT IS DEFEATED

A woman who claimed she was wrongly arrested by Torrance police because of her race has lost her federal lawsuit against the city, a former chief and two officers. Sara Plowden, who lived in Gardena when she filed the civil rights lawsuit in January 2006, claimed she was subjected to a "driving while black" arrest early on Nov. 23, 2003. She claimed the officers physically accosted her and that city officials and former Police Chief James Herren allowed "an atmosphere of lawlessness, abuse and misconduct" to fester in the department.

ARKANSAS: ARIZONA DPS TIGHTENS SEARCH RULES TO AVOID PROFILING

The Arizona Department of Public Safety, in moves intended to prevent and detect racial profiling, is making internal changes that include requiring Highway Patrol officers to document why they search vehicles they stop. Other changes announced by Gov. Janet Napolitano's office include requiring officers to obtain a motorist's consent for a search to get the driver's signature or to use video or audio to record the driver giving permission verbally.

UTAH: UTAH HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICER ACCUSED OF RACIAL PROFILING

Sherida Felders, a black grandmother, alleges a Utah Highway Patrol officer had no reason to believe her Jeep Commander contained illegal substances, but called in a drug-sniffing dog after stopping her for speeding Felders has filed a suit accusing the trooper of conducting an illegal search of her vehicle for drugs based on racial profiling.