State Data Shows Racial Disparities In Police Traffic-Stop Searches

The Governor's Crime Commission has released data on ten years of traffic-stop searches in North Carolina, and the numbers show some racial disparities.

Officers in the state's law enforcement agencies made more than 38,000 traffic-stop searches in 2019.

Among the study's findings: Black drivers had their vehicles searched more often than white drivers. For every 1,000 Black drivers who were stopped, 45 were searched. For whites, it was 23 for every thousand.

It was rare for traffic stops with searches to turn physical, with a driver or passenger physically resisting an officer or an officer engaging in force. But it happened about twice as often with Black motorists compared to white. 

The study was the third of a three-part analysis of traffic stops. The first study looked at the demographics of people who had been pulled over, and the second study looked at why they were stopped.