state police, that’s because “The drug problem is mostly cocaine and marijuana. It is most likely a minority group that’s involved with that.”55
Studies in other states reveal a common pattern. Following a 1995 lawsuit, the Maryland State Police were required to keep data on every traffic stop that led to a search. Temple University’s John Lamberth analyzed the data from 1995 and 1996. He found that while Black people represent 17 percent of Maryland’s driving population and can be observed to drive no differently than White people, 72 percent of those stopped and searched were Black. Fully one-half of the Maryland State Police traffic officers stopped Black people in at least 80 percent of their stops. One officer stopped Blacks in 95 percent of his stops, and two only stopped Black people.56
Likewise, a 1999 Ohio state legislator’s review of 1996 and 1997 court records revealed that Black drivers in Akron were 2.04 times as likely as all other drivers to receive tickets. In Toledo, they were 2.02 times as likely; and in Columbus and Dayton, 1.8 times.57 Researchers with North Carolina State University found that in 1998, Black people were 68 percent more likely than White people to be searched by the North Carolina Highway Patrol.58 The Boston Globe analyzed 764,065 traffic tickets from the period April 2001 to November 2002 and found that Black people and Latinos were ticketed at a rate twice that of their portion of the Massachusetts population. And once ticketed, Blacks were 50 percent more likely than Whites to have their cars searched.59 The LAPD’s statistics from July to November 2002 show that Black motorists were stopped at rates far outstripping their portion of the local population: 18 percent of the drivers pulled over were Black, while Black people make up only 10.9 percent of the city’s populace. Of those pulled over, Black people and Latinos were significantly more likely to be removed from the car than were White drivers: 22 percent of Black people and 22 percent of Latinos were removed from the vehicle, as opposed to 7 percent of White people. And once out of their cars, Blacks and Latinos were more likely to be searched: 85 percent of Black people and 84 percent of Latinos were searched, as compared to 71 percent of White people.60
In Omaha, Nebraska, during the year 2011, Blacks represented 21.6 percent of traffic stops, but only 12.2 percent of the local population. They were almost three times as likely to be searched as Whites (2 percent of Black stops, as opposed to 0.7 percent of White). In Lincoln, Blacks were 3.3 percent of the population, but 7.7 percent of the drivers stopped by police; and they were searched more than twice as often as Whites (3.5 and 1.7 percent, respectively). Hispanics in Lincoln were not particularly likely to be pulled over (5 percent of population, 4.6 percent of traffic stops), but they were searched with disproportionate frequency (2.7 percent, Hispanic drivers; 1.7 percent, White drivers). The Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) pulled over Blacks and Hispanics at rates below their share of the population, but searched both groups more frequently than Whites (1.4 percent for Black and Hispanic drivers; 0.8 percent for White drivers).61
Interestingly, Native Americans were stopped below their population level in Omaha and Lincoln, and above it in State Patrol stops (1.1 percent of stops; 0.8 percent of state population), but all three agencies searched them at much higher rates than any other group. Native Americans were searched by the NSP 2.9 percent of the time (almost twice the rate of Blacks and Hispanics, and more than three times the rate of Whites). They were searched by police in Omaha in 4.2 percent of traffic stops (more than twice the rate of Blacks, and six times the rate of Whites). And they were searched by the Lincoln police in an astonishing 7.1 percent of stops (twice as often as Blacks, more than two-and-a-half times as often as Hispanics, and more than four times as often was Whites). Similar disparities were apparent in the arrests that sometimes follow from traffic stops. The State Patrol arrested 1.8 percent of the White drivers they stopped, 3.7 percent of Hispanics, 4 percent of African Americans, and 5.7 percent of Native Americans. The Lincoln police arrested 0.8 percent of Whites, 2.1 percent of Hispanics, 4.1 percent of Blacks, and 9.7 percent of Native Americans. The handcuff-happy Omaha police, meanwhile, arrested 11.9 percent of Whites, 23.9 percent of Hispanics, 29.8 percent of Blacks, and 31.4 percent of the Native American drivers they stopped.62
Nationally, the most recent Justice Department study found that in 2011, “Relatively more black drivers (13%) than white (10%) and Hispanic (10%) drivers were pulled over,”63 and Blacks (7 percent) and Hispanics (6 percent) were ticketed at a higher rate than whites (5 percent). More telling, cops were also twice as likely to end the stop without taking further action—writing a ticket, or even issuing a warning—if the driver was Black (2 percent) than if he or she was White or Hispanic (1 percent each), suggesting that Blacks are more subject to arbitrary pretext stops. Likewise, while police only searched 2 percent of White drivers, they searched 6 percent of Blacks and 7 percent of Hispanics.64
The studies show that people of color are more likely than White people to be pulled over, removed from the car, and searched. But they reveal something else as well: Race is useless as an indicator of criminality. While Blacks and Latinos accounted for 78 percent of those searched at the south end of the New Jersey Turnpike during the year 2000, evidence was more reliably found by searching White people: 25 percent of White people searched had contraband, as compared to 13 percent of Black people and 5 percent of Latinos. According to the North Carolina study, 26 percent of those Black people searched and 33 percent of the White people searched were found to possess contraband.65 In Massachusetts, 16 percent of White people searched were found to possess drugs, as compared to 12 percent of Black people and 10 percent of Latinos.66
In Portland, in 2011, African Americans were the subject of 11.8 percent of all traffic stops and 19.5 percent of all pedestrian stops, though they are only 6.3 percent of the local population. They were searched in 12.6 percent of these stops, which is 3.7 times the rate at which White people were searched. Latinos were stopped at a rate below their portion of the population (6.2 percent of traffic and 6 percent of pedestrian stops, as opposed to 9.2 percent of the census total), but they were searched 8 percent of the time (2.7 times the White rate). Again, police were more likely to find contraband on Whites (42.7 percent of searches) than Blacks (30.5 percent) or Latinos (29.8 percent).67
Crackdown in Seattle
Of course, these biases aren’t limited to traffic and pedestrian stops. In her study of drug arrests in Seattle over a four-month period in 2005 and 2006, University of Washington sociologist Katherine Beckett found that, though Blacks represent only 8 percent of the city’s population, they make up 67 percent of drug arrests. This placed the arrest rate (per 100,000 population) for Blacks at 13.6 times that of Whites, and the arrest rate for selling drugs at 21 times that for whites.68 Even adjusting for different patterns of consuming and distributing narcotics, the disparity remains: Depending on the source, empirical studies suggest that Blacks represent between 11 and 28 percent of Seattle’s drug consumers and between 14 and 28 percent of the city’s drug dealers.69 Direct observation of outdoor drug markets in the Downtown and Capital Hill areas support these estimates: African Americans were 33.3 percent of sellers observed Downtown and 9.1 percent in Capitol Hill, but represented 85.3 and 27.2 percent of arrests in these areas, respectively. In other words, Blacks delivering drugs in Capital Hill were 3.9 times more likely to be arrested, and those Downtown were 13.6 times more likely than “whites engaged in the same behavior in the same geographic area” during the same period of time.70
Beckett’s study considers, tests, and eliminates a variety of possible explanations for the disparity, including different rates of drug use and participation in the drug economy, higher arrest rates for outdoor sales, the geographic concentration of enforcement activity in the Downtown area, and the police focus on crack cocaine.71 Of these, only crack was a statistically significant factor. Of all the city’s drug arrests, 72.9 percent were for crack, and 73.4 percent of those arrested for crack were African American.72 Thus, if one recalculates leaving out crack-related arrests, the Black rate drops from 21 times the White rate to a more modest 2.8.73 This correlation offers some support to the idea that the excessive focus on crack is driving the disproportionate arrest rate.
But then the question arises, why the focus on crack? Looking at data concerning the frequency of crack sales, calls to police reporting drug
