Chicago police traffic stops have taken place has greater than doubled within the last nine years in what the American Civil Liberties Union, a civil rights group, calls “the.”recent stop and frisk.”
“Stop and frisk” is when officers stop and search people if there’s “reasonable suspicion” that they’re involved in criminal activity. The practice was documented disproportionately goal blacks and Latinos – not only in Chicago but additionally in New York And within the United States. In Chicago it’s like that declined sharply since a 2015 reform agreement between the ACLU and the Chicago Police Department.
Meanwhile, the variety of traffic stops in Chicago has risen sharply, from from lower than 200,000 in 2016 to over 570,000 in 2023. And something like that Stop and browseAccordingly, the police in Chicago disproportionately stop black drivers our latest study Investigating racial bias in traffic enforcement.
Drivers, automated checks and police checks
Our study, published in June 2024, used data on the racial composition of drivers on every street in Chicago. We then compared who drives on the road and who gets a ticket City speed cameras and who gets stopped by Chicago police.
Our findings show that the proportion of tickets issued to black and white drivers closely matches their respective proportion of road users when speed cameras issue the tickets. In contrast, under humane enforcement, cops stop black drivers at speeds that far exceed their presence on the road.
For example, on roads where half of the drivers are Black, about 54% of automated camera alerts receive Black drivers. However, they make up around 70% of police stops.
On roads where half the drivers are white, white drivers make up about half of automated citations — and lower than 20% of police stops.
Driving while black
Our research contributes to this other evidence This shows that racial bias is an issue in traffic enforcement – an issue that is usually summarized as follows:Driving while black.”
During the civil rights era of the Sixties, law enforcement incidents targeting black drivers were common. As the scientist and historian Gretchen Sorin explains intimately her 2020 book “Driving While Black“The car simultaneously opened up new opportunities for freedom and new dangers for black people.”
In the Nineteen Nineties, all the world witnessed the punishment that might await those caught driving while black. In 1991, a black man named Rodney King was stopped and beaten by police after a high-speed chase in Los Angeles. The violent encounter, which was captured on videotape and circulated in local media, became national news.
The acquittal of the officers triggered this 1992 Los Angeles riotsby widespread unrest and violence Over 50 people were killed, 1000’s were injured and $1 billion in property damage was caused.
There have been killings of cops lately Daunte Wright, Tire Nichols and other black drivers have shown how traffic stops can quickly escalate and sometimes turn deadly.
In September 2024, Miami Dolphins player Tyreek Hill was stopped by local police on his method to a game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Police officers physically pulled Hill from his vehicle and handcuffed him. The incident raised questions on the officers' aggressive use of force.
Miami-Dade Police Department
Fairer enforcement and safer streets
All people have prejudices. These prejudices can develop into dangerous when these persons are cops – agents of the state armed and empowered to make our cities safer.
And even when there is no such thing as a excessive use of force, enforcement varies undermines trust between communities and police.
In recent years, as national discussions about racial bias in policing have increased, so have many police departments implemented programs equivalent to implicit bias training to make sure fairer enforcement. While these initiatives appear to have an effect on officers' attitudes toward implicit bias, they don’t appear to alter it Breakdown by race of who police have stopped, searched or arrested.
To reduce inequalities in enforcement and improve the handling of traffic violations, more fundamental reforms are likely needed.
What might more ambitious political reforms appear to be?
Several current potential traffic enforcement reforms give attention to decriminalization and de-escalation.
Lawmakers in Illinois recently made a proposal a bill that will ban traffic stops exclusively for non-criminal and minor violations equivalent to improper vehicle registration, seat belt violations, or lane usage errors.
Berkeley, California, is considering using trained civilians for traffic enforcement Reduce the opportunity of escalation. The idea is comparable to parking enforcement in lots of cities, including Chicago, which has unarmed parking units separate from police.
The reason for a lot of police traffic stops is safety should proceed to be a priority. Between 2013 and 2022, there was a median variety of fatalities in accidents in Chicago 44 pedestrians, seven cyclists and 78 vehicle occupants per yr.
In contrast is the Norwegian capital Between 2015 and 2019, there have been 4 traffic deaths a yr in Oslo. If Chicago's streets were as secure as Oslo's, accidents would kill 15 people every year – not 129.
Greater use of automated traffic enforcement could improve road safety and transform policing.
John M. Chase via Getty
Cameras can detect dangerous traffic violations equivalent to: B. detect serious speeding and running red lights without the necessity for immediate police intervention. Automated enforcement alone won’t guarantee secure streets, however the variety of cameras has declined Accidents with fatal outcomes and serious injuries often occur during operationsincluding in Chicago.
Over half of Chicago's police stops in 2023 were License plate, registration or equipment related. Automating enforcement of such non-moving violations would eliminate a key driver of police-driver interaction and reduce the potential for bias and escalation.
This, in turn, would release police resources to give attention to non-traffic priorities.
And as our data shows, cameras are a level playing field: they haven’t any racial bias and pose no risk of escalation.
image credit : theconversation.com