Presentation to the Mayor's Task Force on Re-imagining Public Safety City of Hillsborough, NC March 11, 2021 - Frank R. Baumgartner, UNC Chapel ...
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Presentation to the Mayor’s Task Force on
Re-imagining Public Safety
City of Hillsborough, NC
March 11, 2021
Frank R. Baumgartner, UNC Chapel Hill
frankb@unc.edu, http://fbaum.unc.edu
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 1
A ticket for speeding? Or a longer
conversation about what you are doing?
• Operating a vehicle means you are breaking a law. If you break a law,
you are liable to be detained and the officer can ask you questions.
• Decades of standard practice, with full support from the US Supreme
Court, have led police around the country to use the most common
interaction with citizens, the routine traffic stop, as an opportunity to
conduct an informal criminal investigation.
• Middle-class white Americans are generally exempt from this. Many
cannot even imagine it could be happening.
• But in many minority communities, there is a sense that any
interaction with police may lead to a lot of questioning.
• One question not commonly posed: Are we gaining a lot in terms of
public safety? Is it worth it?
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 2
A quick summary of a long book:
• Black drivers in NC 2x as likely to be pulled over
• Once pulled over, 2x as likely to be searched
• Typical contraband “hit” is very small
• Only about 10 percent of searches lead to arrest.
• Disparities are ubiquitous: all states and localities show
similar patterns
• Targeting seems clearly based on stereotyping.
• Each time we find a new database with another variable, we
find more evidence of stereotypes: out of state plates, older
car, luxury v. less expensive vehicles, cars v. work vans, each
variable predicts higher rate of search.
• If we had a variable for “air freshener hanging from the rear-
view mirror”, that would probably predict search as well.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 3
SBI-122
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 4
Differential Likelihood of Stop
Note: Whites drive more so these population comparisons under-estimate disparities by
about 16 percent.
Whites, population v. stops share Blacks, population v. stops share
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 5
Extensions to
other
states…
Every police
agency we
can find,
over 1,900
across many
states.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 6
Racial Differences in Safety v. Investigatory
Stops; Consent v. Probable Cause searches.
• “Safety” v. “Investigatory”
• An imperfect distinction, but the idea is to compare
• stops where the officer clearly observed a serious safety violation, then decided to stop
the car, versus
• stops where the officer first decided he/she wanted to stop the car, then found a
technical violation.
• The traffic and vehicle codes render every single motorist a lawbreaker. The
police therefore have unfettered discretion in making legally justified, but
perhaps unfair, traffic stops.
• What we would like: compare enforcement of the traffic laws for the purpose
of keeping the roads safe with use of the traffic or vehicle code to fight the
war on drugs.
• What we can do: compare the 10 traffic stop purposes…
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 7
Safety and Investigatory Stops (data through 2016)
Purpose # of Stops % of Stops
Safety 10,903,991 52.41
Speed Limit 8,575,792 41.22
Stop Light/Sign 992,374 4.77
Driving Impaired 182,558 0.88
Safe Movement 1,153,267 5.54
Investigatory 9,628,598 46.27
Vehicle Equipment 1,833,213 8.81
Vehicle Regulatory 3,556,772 17.09
Seat Belt 1,812,175 8.71
Investigation 1,410,390 6.78
Other Vehicle 1,016,048 4.88
Other 273,526 1.31
Checkpoint 273,526 1.31
Total Stops (Drivers only) 20,806,115
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021
100.00 8
1 to 1.7 Million stops per year, about 50/50
safety v. investigatory purposes…
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 9
Black Search Rate is higher than for Whites,
overall: 5.13 / 2.38 = 2.16.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 10But this is made up of two parts: Safety, and
Investigatory.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 11While the overall differences is 2.16, it is much
higher for searches stemming from investigatory
stops.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 12The Investigatory / Safety Stop Ratio
• Number of Investigatory Purpose Stops / Number of Safety Stops
• High values: the police are doing more stops for equipment violations,
expired tags, etc.
• Low values: the police are focusing on keeping the roads safe from
speeders, drunk drivers, those running stop signs, etc.
• Recall: Safety stops = speeding, stops signs, DUI, unsafe movement.
Investigatory stops = all others.
• We calculate this for every agency in the state…
• (It varies a lot from agency to agency, and for a given agency over time. The
highway patrol (SHP) for example, does mostly safety stops, and has a very
low search rate. Major city PD’s have higher investigatory stop rates, and
much higher search rates.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 13As the focus moves from traffic safety stops to
investigatory stops…
Black drivers get searched more, Black drivers get more warnings,
compared to whites compared to whites
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 14As the focus moves from traffic safety stops to
investigatory stops…
Black drivers get fewer tickets, Black drivers get arrested more,
compared to whites compared to whites
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 15What to make of this?
• Police agencies that instruct their officers to focus on traffic safety see
lower racial disparities in the outcomes of those stops.
• Black drivers get more tickets; isn’t that a bad thing?
• No, if you were really truly speeding, or you blew through a stop sign, you
deserve a ticket.
• Looking at differences in outcomes gives us some insight into the
motivation of the officer
• Clearly, officers have the legal justification to stop anyone they want,
since all drivers are violating some law. Courts have upheld that view.
• But, people know when they were profiled. And they don’t like it.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 16Consent and Probable Cause Searches
• Dramatic decline in Consent search rates in the past 10 years
• Large reduction in racial disparities as these rates have gone down so
dramatically.
• However, a corresponding substitution of probable cause searches
• These have targeted black men.
• Other demographic groups have seen the decline in consent searches with no
corresponding increase in probable cause searches, or a lower increase.
• Percent of these searches that lead to contraband: Low.
• Percent of these searches that lead to contraband followed by the
arrest of the driver: Even lower. Very low, in fact.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 17Search rates have declined by over 25 percent.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 18Probable cause and consent searches: Rates
and raw numbers.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 19Search rates are much higher for men than
women
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 20Racial disparities are relatively low among
female drivers, high for male drivers.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 21White male drivers saw only a slight increase in
probable cause searches; black males a huge one.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 22Fewer than 10 percent of consent searches lead to
arrest. Fewer than 30 percent of probable cause
searches do. (Note it is slightly higher for whites.)
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 23How much juice for the squeeze?
• Chief Chris Blue (Chapel Hill PD) says he teaches his officers to pay
attention to the likely benefit of any kind of aggressive / assertive
behavior toward a citizen. Is a search likely to yield evidence of a
crime, or will it be fruitless or yield only trivial contraband such as the
residue of some drugs previously consumed?
• “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
• If you don’t get any juice, then the squeeze was not worth it.
• Better to target the more aggressive behaviors on those places, or toward
those people, where it will interdict a serious crime.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 24The cost of “fruitless” searches.
• The US Supreme Court has said that any citizen should be willing to
undergo a rare and momentary inconvenience for the sake of public safety.
• But Philando Castile was stopped 47 times in his short lifetime.
• My last traffic stop was over 25 years ago.
• What’s the difference between Philando Castile and Frank Baumgartner?
There are many, of course. But identity matters…
• People know when they are being investigated because of a pretext. This is
established police behavior, validated by the courts. But it makes people
mad, deprives them of the assumption of privacy that other citizens enjoy,
and alienates large portions of the population.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 25Let’s assign a cost to the decision to search
• My data suggest that 90 percent of consent searches, and 75 percent of probable cause
searches following traffic stops are in fact fruitless in that they do not lead to arrest.
• Highway patrol officers in the 1970s who started the “drug courier profile” methodology
knew it was “a numbers game” – thousands of traffic stops would be required to find a
few couriers.
• “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.”
• But these pretextual stops alienate people and deprive them of their rights.
• Further, they are racially targeted (as well as by gender, age, social class, and by
neighborhood). Naturally, it makes people angry.
• Note, however, that white middle class drivers are not angry, and most are probably
completely unaware that such things happen. Such is the political magic that has allowed
this to go on for decades, and perhaps brought us to this moment where we are looking
throughout the criminal justice system for solutions.
• Focusing traffic stops on traffic safety is a simple solution: Keep the roads safe, and don’t
use the traffic and vehicle codes to go on a fishing expedition likely to land more
minnows than whales.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 26Additional Slides concerning Hillsborough PD
Presentation to the Mayor’s Task Force on Re-imagining Public Safety
Frank R. Baumgartner, UNC Chapel Hill
frankb@unc.edu, http://fbaum.unc.edu
March 11, 2021
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 27Numbers of Stops and Searches, 2015-19,
HPD
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 28Probable Cause and Consent Searches,
Number and Rate per 100 Stops
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 29White and Black Search rates, Probable Cause and
Consent Search rates. Note different scales.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 30Search rates for males and female drivers, by
race. Note different scales.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 31Search rate ratio: Rate of search for black drivers
divided by rate for whites. 1.00 = equality.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 32Some quick summary stats for HPD, all years
• Total stops: 9,948
• Searches: 367
• Contraband hits derived from those searches: 143
• Arrests derived from those contraband hits: 70
• Seventy contraband arrests out of 10,000 stops. That’s the question.
• Was that making us safer? I’m not sure what the contraband was.
• But this is the calculation I think we should be making.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 33Useful readings for background on driving.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 34What were those books again?
• Seo, Sarah A. 2019. Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Seo is a law professor and the book focuses on how the law and our expectations of privacy changed with the
arrival of the automobile.
• Sorin, Gretchen. 2020. Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights.
New York: W.W. Norton.
• A review of the impact of cars on the African American community during a time when public transportation
was segregated.
• Also a PBS documentary: https://www.pbs.org/show/driving-while-black/
• Epp, Charles R., Steven Maynard-Moody, and Donald P. Haider-Markel. 2014. Pulled Over: How
Police Stops Define Race and Citizenship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Based on a survey of drivers, making the distinction between "safety" and "investigatory" stops and how
these make drivers feel.
• See also: Oregon Supreme Court, 365 Or 695 (S066119) State v. Arreola-Botello, November 15,
2019.
• Oregon Supreme Court decision ruling that a search following a traffic stop for "illegal right turn" is illegal,
since it has no relation to understanding the cause of the illegal behavior that caused the stop.
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 35Thank you. Contact me any time.
Frank R. Baumgartner
Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Frankb@unc.edu
www.fbaum.unc.edu
Baumgartner, March 11, 2021 36You can also read
