Who gets pulled over by police in San Diego County? Do police have traffic ticket quotas? Are specific races targeted and pulled over more frequently than others? We looked at the data on the San Diego open data portal to find out.
Do Police have traffic ticket quotas in San Diego?
Traffic ticket quotas are illegal according to California state law, but looking at the monthly totals, you may wonder why the numbers are so high in the beginning of the year. In the first three months of the year, police vehicle stops were higher than any other month. Especially in the month of February. The shortest month of the year had the most vehicle stops on record for white, hispanics, and black people at a total of 8,865. The monthly average for the year was 7,615 and February was more than 16% higher. Break it down per day and the numbers are even higher. For the four groups we looked at, there are an average of 250 police vehicle stops. In the month of February, the daily average was 306 stops a day. Do police in San Diego have quotas to hit? If there are police ticket quotas, it wouldn’t be the first time this was alleged in California. It wouldn’t even be the first time ticket quotas were an issue in San Diego.
Are any races targeted in police vehicle stops?
If you looked at total numbers, you would see whites are pulled over the most with 42,326 vehicle stops in 2016. Hispanics followed next with over 32,441 stops, blacks at 11,845 and asians with 4,721. Combined that’s a total of 91,383 police vehicle stops among the 4 groups. However, it wouldn’t be fair to just look at total numbers without taking into account the percentage of population.
Although blacks make up under 6% of the population, they accounted for 13% of all traffic stops in San Diego this past year. Asian people on the other hand made up 5% of all traffic stops even though they represent 12% of the population here in the county. Whites and hispanics were pulled over almost exactly the same as their population percentage.
Who gets arrested most after being pulled over?
When you look at arrests that occurred after traffic stops, black people made up 24% of all arrests made during traffic stops, more than 4x the percentage of the black population in the county. Hispanics accounted for 42%, higher than the 36% they represent in the population. Whites made up 34% of arrests, with asians at less than 2%.
Vehicle stops where contraband was found
Contraband refers to illegal goods such as drugs, weapons, etc. There were 272 police stops in 2016 where contraband was found among these 4 groups. Hispanics made up 40% of the total, slightly higher than the 35.5% of the population they represent. Blacks accounted for 25% of incidents where contraband was found. Whites accounted for 34% of stops involving contraband and asians less than 1%.