Law enforcement in California handcuffed and detained Black and Indigenous residents during traffic stops at significantly higher rates than white people in 2022, according to data released on Wednesday.
The annual racial profiling report from a state board analyzed 4.5m vehicle and pedestrian stops conducted by 535 law enforcement agencies, the first time departments from across the state contributed data.
The findings suggest there are persistent and severe racial disparities in overall stops and searches; transgender Californians are disproportionately impacted; and youth of color are heavily policed and frequently stopped in schools. Some key findings:
Black residents were stopped the most, making up 5.4% of the state’s population, but 12.5% of stops.
Latinos were also disproportionately stopped, making up 32.4% of the population, but 42.9% of stops.
White and Asian American residents were stopped at lower rates than their proportion of the population.
Native Americans were searched most frequently compared with all racial groups, in 22.4% of stops, nearly twice the rate of white people, who were searched in 12.4% of stops. Native Americans were also handcuffed at the highest rate of all groups at 17.8% of stops, compared with less than 10% for white people.
Black residents were detained on the curb or in a patrol car at the highest rate, at 20.2% of stops, and also ordered to exit their cars more frequently than all other groups, at 7.1% of stops. Black residents were also issued a sole charge of resisting arrest at a rate more than three times the state average, making up 19.2% of those cases.
The data suggests broad bias in police stops of people of color, a trend that has been repeatedly documented in government and advocacy groups’ reports.
Discriminatory policing can come in the form of “pretext stops” when an officer pulls someone over for a minor infraction and then uses the stop to investigate other potential offenses, such as searching for drugs. In 75% of all stops, officers reported that they ultimately took no action. And while white people were less likely to be searched than nearly all other racial groups, they were the most likely to be found with contraband or other evidence of crimes when they were searched.
Police also took actions against trans people significantly more frequently than cisgender people: roughly 50% of all trans people stopped by police were either searched, detained, handcuffed, ordered out of their cars or had other actions taken against them, while that rate was 27.4% for cis men and 19.1% for cis women.
The racial and gender data is based on officers’ perceptions of their identities. The research is conducted by the state’s Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory (Ripa) board, which includes academics, civil rights advocates and law enforcement leaders.
“The scale of data that California is collecting allows us to say definitively that profiling exists – it is a pervasive pattern across the state,” said Andrea Guerrero, co-chair of the Ripa board, in a statement.
Youth stops
The board’s research this year, the report said, also suggests “youth with disabilities, including youth experiencing mental health crises, are particularly vulnerable to police violence and are at higher risk of intrusive police contact, use of force, and death during police encounters”.
Officers reported making 6,441 stops of students on K-12 public campuses in 2022. The Kern county high school district in the Central Valley conducted 545 stops of students, the most in the state. The Los Angeles sheriff’s department had at least 132 deputies assigned to schools at some point in 2022, and they conducted 245 stops of students. The most common reason for stopping students was reasonable suspicion of a crime (3,705 cases, representing 57.53% stops). At least 1,143 students (17.75% of stops) were stopped “to determine whether student violated school policy”, the report found.
Black students were handcuffed on campus at rates nearly double their counterparts: Black youth were handcuffed in 20.03% of stops. The rate was 11.73% for Asian Americans; 11.07% for Latinos; and 9.13% for white students. In 10 stops in 2022, officers reported using pepper spray.
The report also found that California school districts reported a larger number of law enforcement officers than social workers and more security guards than nurses in 2018, the latest data available when the report was written. There are also 19 school district-run police departments across the state, which are separate from municipal police agencies, and the majority of students in those districts are youth of color.
“School-based law enforcement officers in white suburban school districts more often [view] students as charges to be protected, and school-based law enforcement officers in urban districts with a larger number of Black students more often [treat] students as criminals to be feared,” the report said, citing research on campus police.
The report recommends that school districts require staff to obtain approval from administrators before reporting students to police in non-emergency matters and that lawmakers prohibit police from using force to detain, apprehend or overcome resistance of students who are fleeing in low-level disciplinary cases. The authors also recommend that police and school security officers be prohibited from using mechanical restraints on students unless they pose a serious risk of harm to themselves or others.
“We have our priorities wrong,” said Jerlene Tatum, an education advocate in Long Beach. “If we had additional school counselors and psychologists, we wouldn’t have to depend on law enforcement as much. Police are there to police. They’re not there to educate, inspire, engage and support a child to advance in their academics.”
After a school officer in Long Beach fatally shot an 18-year-old girl in 2021, Tatum was part of a group of parents that organized for reforms and dismantling of armed forces on campuses.
“There’s a trauma that comes with being handcuffed,” she said, adding, “And it contributes to the cradle-to-prison pipeline. If our young people encounter police in school, it can create a record for them that probably should not be created, and it puts them on a negative pathway.”
This article was amended on 4 January 2024 to clarify that the claim about schools having more officers than social workers was based on data from 2018, the latest data available when the report was written.
