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Racial Profiling

 

The County of St Louis showed a disparity index of .93 for whites and 1.33 for blacks, also a search rate of 9.77% for whites and 13.11% for blacks. These statistics show that police are stopping and searching blacks more than whites, but it is inaccurate. The statistics leave out many important factors. The following was part of St Louis County's response to these statistics:.
             While the data compiled in this report is informative, any conclusions drawn from this data must be tempered with common sense. For example, population data used to calculate the disparity index does not include members of the minority community that reside in St Louis City and therefore increases the diversity of drivers on the roads within St Louis County. Nor does the data reflect that in a majority of traffic stops, police officers do not know the race of the driver prior to initiating the traffic stop. (Missouri Attorney Generals Office, Annual Report on Traffic Stops, 2000).
             There are many important factors in a traffic stop that were left out of these statistics. Searches are almost always performed when there is an outstanding warrant. Of the black drivers that were stopped in the state of Missouri 9% had outstanding warrants, compared to white drivers who were stopped, only 2% had outstanding warrants. Another factor that was left out was that the presence of interstate highways, large shopping centers, and major employers affect the demographics of the driving population (as apposed to the resident population reported in the census) and will affect the proportionality of stops and arrests.(Missouri Attorney Generals Office, Annual Report on Traffic Stops, 2000).
             Some civil rights activists and public defenders believe the only way to root out bad Police Officers is to keep track of the tickets each officer writes. Police Chief's and Police Officers country wide think that is inherently unfair. A good example of this is if a police officer is assigned to a neighborhood with large numbers of minorities he/she will inevitably write more tickets to the minority population than other officers assigned to predominantly white neighborhoods.


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