Civil Liberties Groups Raise Concerns About Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops

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Civil Liberties Groups Raise Concerns About Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops

Multiple civil rights groups including the ACLU of Rhode Island, the RI Commission for Human Rights, and Rhode Island for Community and Justice raised concerns about the latest results of a study finding racial disparities in traffic stops in Rhode Island.

“It is both sobering and discouraging to read yet another report documenting clear inequalities in the enforcement of traffic stop laws by police departments in the state. It has been almost two decades since community groups first persuaded the General Assembly that the problem of racial profiling deserved investigation and action. The sincere cooperation by police chiefs in this study is reassuring, but there must be a renewed effort to systematically root out this problem and adopt procedures to eliminate continuing racial disparities in the treatment of motorists. Our state’s commitment to equality under the law demands no less,” said RI ACLU director Steven Brown.

The Report

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The report, released by Central Connecticut State University’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, was in response to a state law enacted in 2015 reinstituting the collection of traffic stop data in response to continued community concerns about racial profiling.

The report, examining data for 2016, found that black and Latino drivers are more likely than white drivers to be stopped, and are also more likely to be searched once stopped, even though they are less likely to be found with contraband. 

The CCSU report singled out four police departments – Cranston, Narragansett, North Smithfield and Providence — and one state police barracks for additional scrutiny because of particularly high racial disparity rates.

The three civil rights groups commend those departments for agreeing to work with CCSU to examine the disparities in more depth, but caution that every other police department needs to engage in similar reviews of their data to determine the cause of racial disparities in their own traffic stop enforcement.  

The data below shows the results of a different study from 2014.

The below slides show the racial disparities in traffic stops, ranking communities from least to greatest. For each community, the total number of stops is shown, along with the percentage of non-white drivers compared to the number of non-white drivers who are stopped. A racial disparity appears when the percentage of non-white drivers stopped exceeds the percentage of drivers who are non-white. Data is from a newly released report from the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University. Data was collected by local law enforcement for traffic stops between January 2013 and May 2014. Note: Exeter and Block Island are not included in the report. 

The Communities with the Greatest Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops

#37 Barrington

# of Stops: 7,634

% Non-White Stops: 7.8%

% Non-White Driving Population: 14.5%

Disparity: -6.7%

#36 West Greenwich

# of Stops: 1,376

% Non-White Stops: 5.2%

% Non-White Driving Population: 8.0%

Disparity: -2.8%
 

#35 Westerly

# of Stops: 5,304

% Non-White Stops: 8.9%

% Non-White Driving Population: 11.5%

Disparity: -2.6%

#34 Central Falls

# of Stops: 3,793

% Non-White Stops: 62.5%

% Non-White Driving Population: 64.8%

Disparity: -2.3%
 

#33 Bristol

# of Stops: 5,439

% Non-White Stops: 7.5%

% Non-White Driving Population: 7.7%

Disparity: -0.2%
 

#32 Coventry

# of Stops: 7,520

% Non-White Stops: 4.8%

% Non-White Driving Population: 5.0%

Disparity: -0.2%

#31 North Kingstown

# of Stops: 8,819

% Non-White Stops: 10.1%

% Non-White Driving Population: 10.3%

Disparity: -0.2%

#30 Warwick

# of Stops: 20,707

% Non-White Stops: 13.8%

% Non-White Driving Population: 13.9%

Disparity: -0.1%
 

#29 Burrillville

# of Stops: 2,628

% Non-White Stops: 4.6%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.4%

Disparity: 0.2%

#28 East Greenwich

# of Stops: 4,738

% Non-White Stops: 9.9%

% Non-White Driving Population: 9.4%

Disparity: 0.4%

#27 East Providence

# of Stops: 12,612

% Non-White Stops: 19.9%

% Non-White Driving Population: 18.7%

Disparity: 1.2%

#26 Tiverton

# of Stops: 942

% Non-White Stops: 6.2%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.9%

Disparity: 1.3%

#25 South Kingstown

# of Stops: 9,233

% Non-White Stops: 11.4%

% Non-White Driving Population: 10.0%

Disparity: 1.5%

#24 Little Compton

# of Stops: 1,967

% Non-White Stops: 4.5%

% Non-White Driving Population: 2.8%

Disparity: 1.7%

#23 Richmond

# of Stops: 1,418

% Non-White Stops: 6.6%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.7%

Disparity: 2.0%

#22 Portsmouth

# of Stops: 9,347

% Non-White Stops: 10.1%

% Non-White Driving Population: 7.9%

Disparity: 2.2%

#19 Charlestown

# of Stops: 2,518

% Non-White Stops: 7.6%

% Non-White Driving Population: 5.0%

Disparity: 2.6%

#20 Narragansett

# of Stops: 5,151

% Non-White Stops: 7.5%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.9%

Disparity: 2.7%

#19 Newport

# of Stops: 6,266

% Non-White Stops: 17.5%

% Non-White Driving Population: 14.5%

Disparity: 3.0%

#18 Glocester

# of Stops: 3,897

% Non-White Stops: 7.1%

% Non-White Driving Population: 3.9%

Disparity: 3.1%

#17 Scituate

# of Stops: 2,376

% Non-White Stops: 7.4%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.1%

Disparity: 3.3%

#16 Smithfield

# of Stops: 6,848

% Non-White Stops: 11.2%

% Non-White Driving Population: 7.8%

Disparity: 3.4%

#15 Jamestown

# of Stops: 3,286

% Non-White Stops: 8.0%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.4%

Disparity: 3.6%

#14 Warren

# of Stops: 2,308

% Non-White Stops: 10.0%

% Non-White Driving Population: 5.5%

Disparity: 4.5%

#13 Middletown

# of Stops: 8,008

% Non-White Stops: 18.1%

% Non-White Driving Population: 12.4%

Disparity: 5.6%

#12 Woonsocket

# of Stops: 4,863

% Non-White Stops: 27.5%

% Non-White Driving Population: 21.6%

Disparity: 5.9%

#11 Hopkinton

# of Stops: 5,217

% Non-White Stops: 11.4%

% Non-White Driving Population: 5.5%

Disparity: 5.9%

#10 West Warwick

# of Stops: 8,954

% Non-White Stops: 10.6%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.6%

Disparity: 6.0%

#9 Cumberland

# of Stops: 5,314

% Non-White Stops: 16.9%

% Non-White Driving Population: 10.6%

Disparity: 6.3%

#8 Foster

# of Stops: 2,323

% Non-White Stops: 12.7%

% Non-White Driving Population: 4.7%

Disparity: 8.0%

#7 Pawtucket

# of Stops: 17,779

% Non-White Stops: 42.8%

% Non-White Driving Population: 34.5%

Disparity: 8.3%

#6 Johnston

# of Stops: 8,374

% Non-White Stops: 24.9%

% Non-White Driving Population: 11.9%

Disparity: 12.9%

#5 Lincoln

# of Stops: 2,197

% Non-White Stops: 24.9%

% Non-White Driving Population: 11.4%

Disparity: 13.6%

#4 North Providence

# of Stops: 5,305

% Non-White Stops: 32.0%

% Non-White Driving Population: 16.2%

Disparity: 15.8%

#3 Cranston

# of Stops: 12,875

% Non-White Stops: 38.6%

% Non-White Driving Population: 21.4%

Disparity: 17.1%

#2 North Smithfield

# of Stops: 3,120

% Non-White Stops: 27.1%

% Non-White Driving Population: 5.5%

Disparity: 21.7%

#1 Providence

# of Stops: 18,026

% Non-White Stops: 64.0%

% Non-White Driving Population: 39.9%

Disparity: 24.1%

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