Does race matter?

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Bureau County and other law enforcement agencies are going to have to continue filling out specific information about the traffic stops they make. The Traffic Stops Statistics Survey was set to expire July 1, 2010, but a new law has extended the deadline to 2015.

Five years ago, Illinois launched an effort to identify racial bias in police traffic stops. Under the act, police officers were required to record specific data about each and every stop, including total stops for Caucasian and minority drivers, reason for the stop, and the outcome. The key number in the study is the ratio number, obtained by dividing the estimated minority driving population by the percentage of minority drivers stopped.

The Illinois Traffic Stops Statistics Study for 2008, otherwise known as Illinois’ racial profiling study, showed minorities driving in Illinois have a 13 percent greater chance of being pulled over by local law enforcement agencies than do their white-skinned counterparts.

That statistic comes from the ratio number edged up slightly from 1.10 in 2007 to 1.13 in 2008. A ratio of 1 would indicate that the percentage of minority drivers stopped by police is equal to the estimated minority driving population, while a ratio of 2 indicates that a minority driver is twice as likely to be stopped. Sixty percent of the state’s agencies have ratios less than 1.253.

Data supplied by Bureau County law enforcement agencies show local ratio numbers are all over the board.

The Sheffield and Wyanet police departments have the lowest ratio number of 0, as neither agency reported stopping any minority drivers. However, Sheffield reported only six traffic stops, and Wyanet reported only three traffic stops for the entire year. The Princeton, Walnut and DePue departments all had ratio numbers below the state average.

The Ladd and LaMoille police departments had ratio numbers about three times the state average, with Ladd having a 3.22 ratio and LaMoille a 3.42.

The study also found minorities were more likely to get a ticket than Caucasians, who are more often dismissed with a written warning. In 2008, minority drivers across the state were about 8 percent more likely to be cited on a traffic stop than Caucasian drivers.

In Bureau County, minorities in every community except for LaMoille received more citations than did Caucasian drivers. In LaMoille, all 10 reported Caucasian drivers received a citation, as did only one of the two minority drivers reported.

On the other end of the spectrum, several Bureau County agencies, including Cherry, Ladd and Walnut, ticketed about twice as many minority drivers stopped as Caucasian drivers.

The sheriff says ...

Bureau County Sheriff John Thompson said the traffic survey just costs Bureau County taxpayers more money.

“In Bureau County, it is not an issue,” he said. “All this does is create another burden on us and the taxpayers to be able to keep this data.”

Thompson said his officers collect the data on each stop. The data is entered into a data base, which is periodically downloaded to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

“It’s not difficult, but it ultimately boils down to how much it’s going to cost our community,” he said. “We had to buy the software to do that, and we have to have some person dedicated to do that.”

Thompson said it’s likely that money issues are the reason some area agencies don’t submit the mandated data.

“Unfortunately they’re probably just so limited on resources that they don’t have the financial resources to develop the ability to do that,” he said.

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