Tag: Vehicle and Traffic Enforcement

New data fill long-standing gaps in the study of policing | Science

Data limitations have long stymied research on racial bias in policing. To persuasively demonstrate bias, scholars have sought to compare officer behavior toward minority versus white civilians while holding constant all other factors in the police-civilian encounter that might provide alternative explanations for enforcement disparities. These comparisons in “similar circumstances” are also critical in litigation concerning discriminatory policing, which can often lead to court-ordered remedies (1). Such “all-else-equal” scenarios are elusive in many realms of social science, but two challenges have made them particularly difficult to find in the study of policing. On page 1397 of this issue, Aggarwal et al. (2) report using data from the ridesharing service Lyft—having obtained vehicle location on more than 200,000 drivers using highfrequency GPS pings from their smartphones—to analyze speeding enforcement by the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) and to show how such data offer a path forward for addressing both challenges.
— Read on www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw3618

2023 TRAFFIC STOP DATA ANALYSIS – Suffolk County PD

Traffic Stop Data Analysis
Stonewall Analytics, LLC 2
Executive Summary
This report analyzes nearly 160,000 traffic stops conducted in Suffolk County, New York, in
2023, with the goal of assessing whether racial or ethnic disparities exist in stop and search
practices. The study applies two key statistical tests: the Veil-of-Darkness test to evaluate racial bias in stop decisions and the Hit Rate test to examine search outcomes across different racial and ethnic groups. The data were obtained through the Suffolk County Police Department. The data were cleaned and standardized to ensure consistency across the reporting period of calendar year 2023.
The Veil-of-Darkness test compares traffic stops made during daylight and nighttime hours,
under the assumption that officers are less able to discern a driver’s race at night. Logistic
regression models were used to assess whether minority drivers were stopped more frequently
in daylight than at night, controlling for various factors such as officer command type. The
results showed no statistically significant relationship between daylight stops and the likelihood
of stopping minority drivers, as compared to White drivers. The odds ratios for minority drivers
remained close to 1.0, indicating that racial bias did not appear to be a significant factor in
initial stop decisions.
The second component of the analysis focused on traffic stops with searches using the Hit Rate test, which assesses whether searches yielded a positive result, which is defined as a search yielding illegal drugs, illegal weapons, or other contraband or evidence. Although the data revealed variation in hit rates across racial and ethnic groups, with White drivers having the highest positive result rate, statistical tests found no significant difference in hit rates between White drivers and Black or Hispanic drivers across geographic areas. While White drivers were more likely to have positive result searches, the difference was not statistically significant, suggesting that variations in search outcomes may be influenced by other factors rather than bias in policing practices.
Overall, the study found no evidence of racial bias in traffic stop decisions based on the Veil-of-Darkness test and no statistically significant differences in search hit rates between minority
and White drivers. However, the findings highlight the importance of ongoing monitoring and
refinement of data collection practices to ensure transparency and fairness in law enforcement
activities. Future research should explore additional variables that may contribute to disparities
in post-stop outcomes and continue evaluating traffic stop data over time to detect any
emerging patterns or policy impacts.

Get the report HERE

Despite fewer people experiencing police contact, racial disparities in arrests, police misconduct, and police use of force continue | Prison Policy Initiative

New Bureau of Justice Statistics data reveal that concerning trends in policing persisted in 2022, even while fewer people interacted with police than in prior …
— Read on www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/12/19/policing_survey_2022/

New Jersey State Police Traffic Stop Analysis 2018-21

Introduction

In November 2021, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (NJ-OPIA) engaged the author of this study for the purpose of conducting an independent analysis of traffic stops made by the New Jersey State Police (NJ-SP). Based on the author’s extensive experience working

with state and local policymakers to develop early warning systems for identifying police disparities, the NJ OPIA requested that the analysis focus on the central question of whether there was disparate treatment on the part of NJ-SP towards racial and ethnic minorities.2 After cleaning and linking all of the raw data provided by the New Jersey Office of Law Enforcement Professional Standards (NJ-OLEPS), the analytical sample used in this analysis consisted of 6,177,109 traffic stops made by NJ-SP from 2009 to 2021. In the full analytical sample, 60.52 percent of traffic stops were made of White non-Hispanic motorists while 18.8 percent were Black/African-American and 13.44 percent were Hispanic/Latinx. The overall volume of minority motorists stopped by NJ-SP increased from 35.34 percent in 2009 to 46.28 percent in 2021

www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases23/2023-0711_NJSP_Traffic_Stop_Analysis.pdf

The Skanner News – Police Stop More Black Drivers, While Speed Cameras Issue Unbiased Tickets − New Study From Chicago

Traffic stops by Chicago police have more than doubled over the past nine years in what the American Civil Liberties Union, a civil rights group, is calling the “new stop-and-frisk.”

Stop and frisk is when officers stop and search people based on “reasonable suspicion” that they are involved in criminal activity. The practice has been documented to disproportionately target Black and Latino people – not only in Chicago but also in New York and across the United States. In Chicago, it has declined sharply since a 2015 reform agreement between the ACLU and the Chicago Police Department.
— Read on www.theskanner.com/news/usa/36350-police-stop-more-black-drivers-while-speed-cameras-issue-unbiased-tickets-new-study-from-chicago

Tyreek Hill’s traffic stop can be a reminder of drivers’ constitutional rights | AP News

Below is a nice discussion about constitutional rights.

The question of one’s responsibility to comply with all instructions given by a law enforcement officer recently came up following a traffic stop involving Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
— Read on apnews.com/article/tyreek-hill-constitutional-rights-traffic-stop-6dd2ad077cecd176bea840ba77012d6a

Alternative Traffic Enforcement: Identifying Areas for Future Research | National Institute of Justice

Alternative traffic enforcement is an emerging crime and justice issue prompted by efforts of dozens of jurisdictions throughout the United States. In response to documented dangers and disparities, they seek to change how some traffic violations are handled.[1] Specifically, these strategies try to increase public safety and reduce demands on officers by deprioritizing some traffic offenses and shifting enforcement responsibilities to alternative agencies or technologies. Most of these programs are in their infancy.
— Read on nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/alternative-traffic-enforcement-identifying-areas-future-research

Chicago Police Made Nearly 200,000 Secret Traffic Stops Last Year – The Good Men Project

Chicago police are required by law to document every time they pull someone over. But our new investigation with Bolts reveals the department is releasing vastly incomplete data to oversight agencies, even as the superintendent pledges reforms.
— Read on goodmenproject.com/featured-content/chicago-police-made-nearly-200000-secret-traffic-stops-last-year/