HERSHEY, PA – Last year, Pennsylvania state police stopped and cited drivers of different races and ethnicities at roughly similar rates, according to information on 450,000 vehicle checks released Wednesday.
“The results of multiple analyses showed no significant racial or ethnic differences in the initial reason for the stop by the Pennsylvania State Police,” said Robin Engel, a researcher now at Ohio State University, in releasing the $194,000 study at the state police academy in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
The researchers also found that police officers’ decisions about how to enforce the law after stopping someone are based primarily on legal factors rather than the race or ethnicity of the drivers or officers.
However, the report says that patrol officers on duty were slightly more likely to conduct “peculiar” searches of the vehicles of black drivers than of white or Latino drivers when the drivers’ criminal records were taken into account.
Patrol officers do not ask drivers about their race or ethnicity, but collect this information based on their subjective perception.
Pennsylvania state police and the American Civil Liberties Union agreed two years ago to settle a civil rights lawsuit in federal court. The suit alleged that seven troopers specifically stopped Latino motorists and detained them to check their immigration status. The 10 plaintiffs, all Latino, said the troopers demanded “papers” from drivers and passengers.
To resolve the case, the Pennsylvania State Police issued an ordinance prohibiting officers from stopping people based on their immigration status, citizenship or nationality, and also preventing them from questioning people about their immigration status unless the answers are needed for a criminal investigation unrelated to civil immigration laws.
The new traffic stop report confirmed last year’s findings that racial and ethnic disparities in Pennsylvania State Police traffic stops have become rare, likely due to increased on-the-spot enforcement and surveillance. The agency has also changed its training methods and now emphasizes treating people equally.
In order to make their work more transparent, the state police have also expanded the use of body cameras. Almost half of the police force is now equipped with such a camera.
More comprehensive information about traffic stops in Pennsylvania may soon be available. A law passed by the legislature in May also requires other local police departments serving at least 5,000 residents to collect data on traffic stops and make them publicly available. The measure will take effect at the end of next year.
Rep. Napoleon Nelson (D-Montgomery), chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, called the newly released data “neither reassuring nor overly surprising.” He said the study will be closely scrutinized and that information from smaller departments is needed to get the full picture.
“We don’t yet know the regional differences in the statistical analyses, we haven’t seen that yet,” Nelson said. “There’s a lot we don’t know.”
A review of nearly 4.6 million vehicle and pedestrian stops by 535 California law enforcement agencies in 2022 found that Black people made up nearly 13% of traffic stops in the state, where they make up about 5% of the total population. A 2022 study in Massachusetts found no evidence of racial disparity in decisions to stop drivers, but Hispanic and Black motorists were cited more often than white drivers, and white drivers were more likely to get away with a warning.
In Missouri, a 2018 study found that African-American drivers are stopped 85% more often than whites, and that white drivers are searched less often than blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans, but are more likely to be caught with contraband. The report also found that 7.1% of Hispanics and 6.6% of blacks were arrested after stops, compared to 4.2% of whites.
