PROACTIVE POLICY

Police Review Of Racial Profiling

The "racial profiling" study just released by the San Diego Police
Department is profoundly troubling. It shows that, while blacks and Latinos
constitute 30 percent of the city's population, they accounted for 70
percent of police searches during traffic stops.

The study, backed by Police Chief David Bejarano, very much to his credit,
looked at more than 91,500 traffic stops over the first six months of this
year. Its preliminary findings, that black and Latino motorists are
likelier to be stopped than whites and far likelier to be searched,
reinforces the growing perception among blacks and Latinos in San Diego
that they are accorded unequal treatment by police.

Of course, the figures are not prima facie proof of racial profiling. Many
police officers insist that race has no role in traffic stops; that, in
most cases, they can't even see the skin color of the motorists they pull
over, particularly at night.

However, officers are well aware of a motorist's complexion once they pull
the motorist over. And, as the study reveals, once stopped, blacks and
Latinos are three times as likely to be searched as whites.

Of course, there may be a benign, nonracial explanation for this
statistical disparity. For example, police tend to be deployed in areas
with the highest crime rates. In such areas, there will be more police
calls, more arrests and, yes, more traffic stops and more searches.

It so happens that many of San Diego's higher-crime areas are predominantly
populated by blacks and Latinos. Thus, a high percentage of the motorists
who have run-ins with police in the city's high-crime areas are blacks and
Latinos.

The most salient question raised by the SDPD's racial profiling study is
this: Controlling for such variables as neighborhood (low income, high
income; high crime, low crime), vehicle (new, old; expensive, cheap;
flashy, conservative), driver profile (younger, older; professional,
laborer; well dressed, casual), are blacks and Latinos more or less likely
to be stopped and to be searched than whites?

The study does not answer that question. Therefore, it is inconclusive thus
far that the 64,000 or so black and Latino motorists pulled over by San
Diego police during the first half of this year really and truly were
victims of racial profiling.

Our hope is that continued study of this important issue ultimately will
demonstrate whether racial profiling is the problem that many blacks and
Latinos believe it to be.