Profiling in Missouri? Surely NOT!!!

I normally don't put much stock in those who complain about racial profiling, but when there is a 40% disparity, you've got a problem. This story comes from the Compost-Distressed:

Blacks are stopped more than whitesBy WILLIAM C. LHOTKA
Of the Post-Dispatch
05/27/2004


African-American motorists were 40 percent more likely to be stopped by police in Missouri last year than whites, and black and Hispanic drivers were twice as likely to be searched by authorities as whites after a stop, a statewide report says.

Those figures are nearly identical to figures in the traffic stop report for 2002 compiled by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. They are gleaned from 1.36 million traffic stops by 616 law enforcement agencies.

However, both Nixon and Scott Decker, a criminologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, say that racial profiling cannot be proved or disproved by statistics alone.

"Analysis of the data - particularly the data supplied by individual law enforcement agencies - has proven to be a springboard for constructive dialogue between the agencies and the communities they serve," Nixon said.

Both the 2003 and 2002 reports show that the rate of contraband found in searches of drivers was higher for whites (23.2 percent) than either blacks (17.3 percent) or Hispanics (14.6 percent). Still, blacks were 77 percent more likely to be arrested than whites.

James Buford, president of the Urban League, says the report once again comes as no surprise.

"I compliment the attorney general on publicizing it. But this is the third or fourth year and it doesn't get any better," Buford said. "Those of us being profiled, knew it. There is nothing being done to alleviate it."

Buford suggested legislation that would have consequences. "Let's say the first time, the police department gets a warning. The second time, state or federal funds are withheld."

Decker says he has found a similar trend in the reports of other states and local jurisdictions. Those states include Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Illinois has no law requiring traffic-stop reports based on race.

Blacks and Hispanics are stopped more often and are searched more often, but police find more contraband in the possession of white drivers, the reports show.

"It suggests either that a lot of searches of blacks and Hispanics are on a mandatory basis or whites are stopped more selectively" because of suspicious behavior, Decker said.

In St. Louis County, with a 16-and-over population of 790,046, county police made 63,527 stops last year, the report shows. The population of St. Louis County is 78.14 percent white and 17.25 percent black. Police stopped 43,973 white drivers and 18,005 black drivers. Based on the white-black population, blacks were 84 percent more likely to be stopped than whites.

Officer Rick Eckhard said county police have a harsh written policy against racial profiling, and the issue of diversity is covered at length in training programs at the County's Police Academy.

"We like to think that every stop is based on reasonable suspicion and probable cause only," Eckhard said, adding that the Department's Internal Affairs had only two complaints of racial discrimination from individuals last year.

In the city, police stopped 16,362 white motorists and 14,995 blacks. St. Louis has a 16-and-over population of 268,345, of which 47.56 are white and 46.57 are black, with the remainder listed as Hispanic, Asian or other. Whites were slightly more likely to be stopped than blacks.

In Jefferson County, blacks were 19 percent more likely to be stopped than whites. In St. Charles County, blacks were 288 percent more likely to be stopped than whites.

Decker said such a seemingly startling number in St. Charles County might be showing a weakness of the report. Since it relies on population figures for each locale, it can't account for the many blacks who work in or travel through places like St. Charles County or Clayton but don't live there. While the population of blacks living in such places may be small, the number of blacks driving the roads on any given day may be much larger.

Decker said he was concerned about two trends: an increase in the stops of Hispanics in southwest and southern Missouri, and a continuing high rate of African-American arrests in the suburban central corridor along Highway 40 (Interstate 64), from Clayton to Chesterfield.

Police departments deny racial profiling. Decker said the high rates reflected either profiling or traffic patterns of heavy usage by minorities on the thoroughfares through those cities.

Decker noted one more trend, a declining interest in the annual reports by law enforcement agencies on the one side and advocacy groups on the other.

Figures of the Missouri Highway Patrol show that troopers stopped 279,406 white motorists and 19,443 black motorists last year.

The statewide population of drivers 16 and over was 4.33 million. Figures show that 85.24 percent of those drivers were white and 10.25 percent were black.

The figures show that white drivers were 71 percent more likely than black drivers to be pulled over by the patrol, according to the report.

The Missouri Legislature ordered Nixon to compile the annual reports and police agencies to report every traffic stop in 2000. The report made public Thursday was the fourth.

Nixon said 56 agencies this year failed to report traffic stops in 2003, and 59 agencies last year failed to report traffic stops in 2002. Nixon turned the agency names over to Gov. Bob Holden, who has the authority to withhold funding from agencies that fail to comply.

Reporter William C. Lhotka
E-mail: blhotka@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-615-3283