A new study suggests that Black drivers in Chicago are more likely to get pulled over by police than white drivers, regardless of where they live or are traveling to.
Researchers at the University of Sydney, Cornell University, Rutgers University, and the University of Illinois Chicago looked at police data and compared it to newly available data from traffic cameras and a company that creates traffic models.
The study, published Tuesday, found that on a street with an even 50-50 split of Black and white drivers, Black drivers would account for approximately 70% of the police stops and citations. Where half of drivers were white, fewer than 20% of stops involved white drivers, according to the study.
With speed cameras in an area with that 50-50 split, Black drivers would account for 54% of the tickets, according to the study.
The full results of "The Racial Composition of Road Users, Traffic Citations and Police Stops" were published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, according to Cornell.
Researchers said that the data shows racial bias in traffic stops that is quote "replacing stop and frisk as a new tactic for discrimination," according to a summation published by Cornell.
“This is demonstrably higher and indicates a systemic bias in police traffic enforcement on roads in Chicago,” said Professor David Levinson, Professor of Transport at the University of Sydney.
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ACLU Illinois spokesperson Ed Yohnka said the study confirms what the American Civil Liberties Union has been saying for the past 20 years.
“What we are seeing is that hundreds of thousands of Black motorists across the city of Chicago are being inconvenienced or feeling harassed or feel this detachment from the police because of being repeatedly and constantly stopped,” Yohnka said.
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The ACLU of Illinois has repeatedly filed suit over Chicago Police Department Traffic Stop policies.
In previous statements, CPD said it is working to improve those policies “as part of its overall reform efforts as it continues to build and maintain trust in the communities it serves.”
Cook County States attorney Kim Foxx has said she wants to reduce the incentive for pretextual police stops, stops that are made to establish probable cause for another crime. A similar policy was implemented in Minnesota after in the wake of the George Floyd protests.
“The results have proven that trust is being rebuilt in those communities and criminal activity has not increased,” Foxx said. “We can tackle this issue that has been confirmed over and over again, racial bias in policing, and keep our communities safe by having effective policies."
Levinson said one reason researchers chose Chicago was that much of the data was already available because of the city’s efforts to comply with a federal consent decree.
“As a researcher, you want to be able to say that information is the first step towards a solution,” he said.
Yohnka said the study just adds another pebble to the pile.
“The City and CPD need to fix this,” he said.
