Scarcity of Roadside Statistics
...by Mark Drake
Some of the people who have been detained on local highways, particularly during the CHP's annual autumn exercises, express the feeling that the factors determining which vehicles will be stopped and searched have more to do with the type of vehicle and who's in it than with the condition of its equipment or how its being driven. The Patrol professes that they stop according to objective criteria and enforce the codes without prejudice -- and they point out that the fact that very few complaints are filed with them concerning these stops tends to support that contention.
Of course, certain statistical data about these stops could provide strong clues about the impartiality of the stops and legitimacy of the searches -- if only those numbers were available. Things like the sex, age, and ethnicity of the drivers, the fraction of speeding, weaving, or seat belt tickets issued during these operations which are successfully contested in court, the fraction of non-consensual searches which come up dry, and so on. In fact, it seems as though that sort of information would be essential to the managers of the program in order for them to determine whether they are spending their resources cost-effectively. Unfortunately though, they insist they don't note down any such data, and in fact have no numerical information at all beyond what the Press Democrat's intrepid reporter squeezed out of a reluctant CHP bureaucracy last fall when looking into Operation North Coast...
Perhaps the following has something to do with the Department's apparently nonchalant attitude toward the collection of relevant statistics:
An extensive article in the Raleigh News and Observer last summer describes the practices of "(a) select North Carolina Highway Patrol team, assigned to intercept illegal drugs on Interstates 95 and 85." They found that this team "charged black male drivers at nearly twice the rate of other troopers working the same roads," and that "(i)n most cases the drivers were charged with minor traffic violations and no drugs were found."
Particularly in view of the apparent racial profiling involved, the ACLU of North Carolina and the newspaper investigated the operation, and in doing so observed "(t)he Highway Patrol says it doesn't have any written drug interdiction training materials...A Federal Highway Administration memo helps explain why. Training details can sink a drug case in court, said the 1994 memo, whose cover was labeled 'should be stored in locking file cabinet or desk drawer.' 'Well-defended cases include discovery and review of training materials provided arresting or seizing officers,' the memo said. 'Materials...can be damaging to criminal cases, particularly in suppression of evidence hearings.'"
The reasoning here would be that if you intend to use methods that probably won't pass Constitutional muster, you should by all means avoid leaving a paper trail -- either a prospective one (by writing down what you intend to do wrong) or a retrospective one (by keeping records from which a sharp investigator could deduce what you had actually done wrong).
But relief may be on the way. Congressman John Conyers (D-IL), alarmed at such abuses surfacing in several states, has introduced HR 118, the "Traffic Stops Statistics Act of 1997." It would require the Attorney General to "acquire data about all stops for routine traffic violations..." including number of individuals stopped and their ethnicity and approximate age, the offense alleged to have led to the stop, whether a search ensued and if so, the rationale for the search and the results of it, and whether any warning, citation or arrest resulted. The AG would then publish an annual summary of these data.
Sounds reasonable to us.
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