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Disparity in car stops cited

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 30, 2007

WASHINGTON - Black, Hispanic and white drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police, but blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched and arrested, a federal study found.

Police were much more likely to threaten or use force against blacks and Hispanics than against whites, whether at a traffic stop or elsewhere, according to the Justice Department.

The study, released Sunday by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, covered police contacts with the public during 2005 and was based on interviews by the Census Bureau with nearly 64, 000 people age 16 or over.

Traffic stops have become a politically volatile issue. Minority groups have complained that many stops and searches are based on race. Blacks in particular have complained of being pulled over for simply "driving while black."

"The available data is sketchy but deeply concerning, " said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau. The civil rights organization has done its own surveys of traffic stops, and he said the racial disparities grow larger the deeper the studies delve.

Like a 2002 report, this one contained a warning that the racial disparities uncovered "do not constitute proof that police treat people differently along demographic lines" because the differences could be explained by circumstances not analyzed by the survey. The 2002 report said such circumstances might include driver conduct or whether drugs were in plain view.

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.

Fast Facts:

The findings

Black, Hispanic and white drivers were equally likely to be pulled over by police - between 8 percent and 9 percent of each group. Disparities show up after that point:

- Blacks (9.5 percent) and Hispanics (8.8) were likelier to be searched than whites (3.6).

- Blacks (4.5 percent) were more than twice as likely as whites (2.1) to be arrested.

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

[Last modified April 30, 2007, 02:10:51]