A preliminary report on vehicle stops released by the Eugene Police Department on Aug. 12 reveals that nearly twice as many men than women were pulled over by officers for traffic violations. But whether race and ethnicity play a larger role than gender in traffic stops is uncertain.
The results of the first-ever analysis of police traffic stops in Eugene show that black drivers were pulled over at a more frequent rate than other races based on their percentage of the population. White drivers made up the largest portion of traffic stops, most likely because the majority of Eugene’s population is white, according to the report. Asian drivers were pulled over the least, and less frequently than any other minority.
Blacks and Latinos also experience longer traffic stops on average than those of white and Asian drivers.
The study’s author, Vikas Gumbhir, a University graduate student working toward a Ph.D. in sociology, said people shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on the study. The data reflects one year worth of analysis, and the report stated discrimination is only one of many possibilities that could explain the differences in treatment of drivers.
“Whether racial profiling is happening or not is too much to ask from this data,” Gumbhir said. “I don’t think this data alone is enough to prove either way.”
EPD interim Police Chief Thad Buchanan said in an e-mail to the Racial Profiling Task Group that the issue is more complicated than it appeared on the surface.
“The community wanted to know what our traffic stop data looked like,” Buchanan said. “Now we have something to show.”
The report is built on data gathered between January 2002 and December 2002 and is based on 17,871 stops conducted by EPD officers. Officers were asked to fill out a 19-item survey on custom-printed machine-readable forms after a traffic stop. Completed survey cards were then scanned into a database, and the resulting data was checked against the cards for errors and omissions.
EPD estimates that cards were completed for 78 percent of stops.
The majority of traffic stops — 89.3 percent– involved white drivers. Approximately 87.3 percent of Eugene’s population is white. Latino drivers, making up 4.3 percent of the population, were involved in 4.3 percent of all stops. Black drivers comprised 2.4 percent of all stops and form 1.1 percent of the population. Asian drivers, while comprising 3.7 percent of the population, were the subjects of 2.3 percent of all stops. In 13.4 percent of all stops the officer formed an opinion on the driver’s race before the stop and of those drivers, 90.8 percent were white.
Latino and black drivers were more likely to be searched than white drivers but were less likely to experience enforcement such as receiving a citation. However, Latino and black drivers were more likely to be arrested compared to white drivers.
Most traffic stops resulted from traffic violations such as speeding. However, more black and Latino males than white males were stopped because the officer had pre-existing knowledge of a warrant, a suspended or revoked license, or other reasons.