Report: Racial disparities seen in police stops in state, county
Data collected under California's Racial Identity and Profiling Act show that during the 47,000 stops made by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office in 2021, Black and Hispanic individuals were stopped at disproportionately higher rates than their white counterparts.
Racial disparities in police stops by the sheriff’s office mirror statewide trends, according to a report released Tuesday based on “the nation’s largest and most comprehensive collection effort” of this type of data.
It's the first time the county agency has been included in the state's overall report, which captures findings from 2021. Local leaders say the report can be used as a tool for law enforcement leaders to understand patterns and to inform training of officers. The data also confirm long-held beliefs among minorities, advocates say.
At the same time, authorities caution the report has flaws stemming from factors like the time a of day a stop is made or the city of residence for the person stopped.
RIPA requires law enforcement agencies to collect information on the perceived age, race, gender, sexual orientation, English fluency and disability status of individuals during stops. The data from each jurisdiction is compared to U.S. Census data.
In 2021, Hispanic individuals comprised 30% of Ventura County’s population and accounted for 46% of people stopped by sheriff's deputies, according to the state racial data posted on the sheriff’s website. Black individuals comprise 1% of the county population but account for nearly 5% of all stops. White individuals make up 52% of the county population but account for 43% of traffic and pedestrian stops, the data show.
The report examines the issue of racial profiling as a public health matter and looks at the negative impact of law enforcement interactions on residents and communities.
Regina Hatcher-Crawford, president of the Ventura County NAACP, said the trends in the report did not surprise her.
“Do I believe this is happening in Ventura County? Absolutely. This is something we always knew was happening but it was hard for us to prove it. We’re glad there are reports coming out to prove it,” she said.
Ventura sheriffs Capt. Cameron Henderson said the "major difficulty" with the data collection is that it is based on an officer's perception of an individual and officers are prohibited from asking for that information. He said in the case of traffic stops, drivers are often pulled over before an officer can observe their race or identity.
"You can have three different deputies perceive three different types of demographics on the same exact person. In addition, often traffic stops are made without the ability to see inside of the vehicle due to night time hours, tinted windows or encountering a vehicle from behind," he said.
Former Sheriff Bill Ayub, who served on the RIPA board that wrote the report, said the data is “inherently flawed." It is misleading to compare arrests to local demographic data because it fails to account for the fact that some of the people stopped, including those who enter Ventura County to steal catalytic converters or perform organized retail theft, live outside of the county, he said.
“We want to reduce bias in the criminal justice system, and we want to make sure officers are acting responsibly. But I don't think this is a good gauge of that. Maybe it's a step in that direction,” he said.
Ayub said the data and its analysis is a tool for law enforcement leadership because if there are glaring discrepancies, it gives agencies an opportunity to question why.
“Why are people with disabilities stopped at a disproportionate rate? That's a question that deserves to be answered,” he said.
Anti-profiling law
The report included information from the state's 58 largest law enforcement agencies, including the county sheriff's office. The act prohibits racial and identity profiling by law enforcement and requires agencies to report data to the state Attorney General's Office and the California Department of Justice.
The law had a graduated rollout, with the largest agencies in the state required to collect data since 2018. The county sheriff’s office was required to start gathering RIPA data in 2021.
Smaller agencies, like Simi Valley, Oxnard, Ventura, Port Hueneme and Santa Paula joined the process in 2022. Those agencies and the remaining law enforcement agencies in California not covered previously will release their first annual report in April.
Ayub represented the California State Sheriff’s Association on the RIPA board for two years with other law enforcement leaders, who sat alongside representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union, the California Public Defenders Association, public policy professors, pastors and business owners. Ayub said law enforcement officials were outnumbered 3 to 1 by other interests.
The board’s mandate is to eliminate racial and identity profiling in policing.
Statewide findings
Participating agencies reported 3.1 million stops in 2021, with the California Highway Patrol accounting for slightly more than half.
Black individuals had the highest rates of being searched, detained, handcuffed and removed from a vehicle, even though police stopped over twice the number of white individuals. Statewide, Blacks were searched at over twice the rate of white individuals. Officers took no action as the result of a stop most frequently with Black individuals. According to the report, that indicated those individuals were not engaged in criminal activity when stopped.
Black and Hispanic individuals were more likely to have force used against them compared to their white counterparts, while Asian and other individuals were less likely to have force used against them. With the exception of Asian and Middle Eastern/South Asian individuals, all racial or ethnic groups of color had higher search rates compared to white individuals.
This year’s report gave new focus to youth and adolescents. Black teens between ages 15 and 17 were searched at nearly six times the rate of their white peers while Hispanic teens of the same age range were nearly four times more likely to be searched.
Black and Hispanic teens “experience stark differences” in how they are treated by officers compared to their white peers, according to the report.
Individuals with disabilities, including mental health issues, are also overrepresented in certain enforcement actions. Data show that individuals with disabilities were searched, detained and handcuffed at four times the rate of their nondisabled peers.
Law enforcement interactions can erode, rather than bolster public safety due to high rates of distress, a sense of injustice, hopelessness and dehumanization, according to the report. They can also trigger stress responses, anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Hatcher-Crawford said that police interactions often leave Black and minority individuals in fear for their lives. She said she frequently encounters stories of "overzealous" policing of minorities, including of her own husband during traffic stops.
"It's a public health issue because it's a mental health issue. You have people with higher rates of anxiety and depression because they're afraid. Every time you get in that car, you're afraid you're going to be stopped," she said. "I have two sons. I pray every single day for my two sons."
The report says racial and identity profiling in policing is not new and cited the history of enforcement of unjust laws, including slavery, the forcible removal of indigenous communities from native lands, attacks on suffragettes, Japanese internment, the criminalization of the LGBTQ community and the targeting of immigrants.
Hatcher-Crawford said certain policies, like the Ventura sheriff's authorization to wear cowboy hats with uniforms, hold different significance to Black and minority residents than their white peers.
"Guess what the cowboys did to us? That's generational trauma," she said.
Local findings
Of the nearly 50,000 citizen stops by the sheriff’s office in 2021, 33,000 were traffic stops, according to data posted on the sheriff's department website. Of those, 12,250 resulted in no action, 12,184 resulted in a citation or infraction, 3,546 resulted in an arrest while 3,432 were cited and released. Verbal or written warnings were issued to 9,349 individuals.
Black individuals accounted for 5% of arrests. Hispanic individuals made up 51% of arrests and white people accounted for 40% of arrests. Seven percent of people handcuffed or flex cuffed were Black and 53% were Hispanic while 37% were white, according to department data.
In 2021, the sheriff's office had 42 complaints filed against its deputies by members of the public, including five complaints of racial and identity profiling.
Henderson, who is Black, said deputies receive multiple forms of anti-bias and cultural diversity training. He attributed the low number of racial profiling complaints to professionalism and high standards of accountability.
He said RIPA data has not led to any departmental changes.
Hatcher-Crawford said she is not anti-law enforcement and said she has enjoyed friendly and collegial relationships with many sheriff and police officials in Ventura County. But she said there is a difference between feeling in danger because of performing a dangerous job and feeling in danger because of the color of one's skin.
"I understand officers put their lives on the line every day. But it goes on both sides," she said.
The report recommended a "multi-pronged" series of reforms, including reducing the use of "pre-textual stops," where officers use a traffic stop as a pretext to investigate hunches of other criminal behavior, and reducing consent searches, where officers ask individuals to search their person or vehicle because the situation does not meet statutory requirements to justify a search.
Implementation by smaller agencies
Oxnard Police Department Cmdr. Ricardo Vazquez, who oversees professional standards for 240 sworn personnel, said his agency just completed its first year of data collection and their leaders will analyze the findings in the coming months. But he said that data from larger agencies has already been a useful tool for guiding training and the allocation of resources, as well as seeking grant funding for certain areas like training and outreach.
He noted that data on disparities with individuals with disabilities indicates a need for more training when dealing with that population.
"I think training is going to be the big positive aspect to the data that we're submitting," he said.
Cmdr. Lincoln Purcell, who oversees patrol operations at the Simi Valley Police Department, said implementing RIPA has not been onerous, but it has added another layer of responsibility for department employees. He said drawing conclusions based merely on demographics can be "tricky," because it obscures geographic and economic factors that might account for discrepancies.
Purcell said there are concerns the data will point to inaccurate conclusions about officers' intent. He said if bias or racism is playing out in law enforcement, agencies want to know because there should be no place for that within the profession.
But he said in the vast majority of traffic stops, officers don't know the driver's race or gender until after a stop has been made and there are concerns the data will be used to draw inaccurate conclusions about intent.
Ventura Police Chief Darin Schindler said many stops are conducted as the result of a member of the public calling for service, during which officers rely on descriptions given to them by other members of the public to make contact with an individual.
Schindler also noted that local demographics may not be a meaningful point of reference because between one-third to one-half of all people who get arrested do not reside in Ventura. Many are transient, he said.
"If you don’t include that, you’re missing some really important data," Schindler said. "We teach, we preach and we train on the behavior, not the demographics."
Oxnard, Ventura and Simi use third-party software applications to collect, analyze and send data to the state. Purcell said of the 7,000 stops Simi police made last year, 2,000 are still being processed. Purcell said Simi has talked about creating a transparency dashboard with the data, as has been done by the sheriff's office but no final decision has been made.
Dawn Megli is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at dawn.megli@vcstar.com or @ReporterDawn. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Report: Racial disparities in police stops in state, county
