Areas with good data often have policy debates that are not possible in places where poor data makes it hard to know what’s going on.
Researchers say the existence of data alone can change how the police behave.Stella Kalinina for The New York Times
Last Monday, we published a data-driven look at the decline of traffic stops in America. The cities and states we highlighted weren’t necessarily those with the steepest declines in traffic enforcement nationally — they were places with steep declines that data enabled us to see.
Change in traffic stops
Arlington, Texas
Menlo Park, Calif.
Omaha
Portland, Maine
Percent decline is calculated from the earliest to the most recent year shown. Data is sourced
from each agency.
There is no national standard or source for recording traffic stops, so we tried to gather data from as many different cities and state agencies as possible. Many cities we would have liked to have shown had incomplete data.
Some cities have incomplete public data
Bakersfield, Calif.
Chesapeake, Va.
Columbus, Ohio
Wichita, Kan.
And other cities publish no data on traffic stops at all.
Other cities have no public data
Atlanta
Indianapolis
Phoenix
Miami
The lack of reliable, comparable data doesn’t just make our job as reporters tricky. Communities with good data often have different political and policy discussions than places where nonexistent data makes it hard for the public to know what’s going on. Data collection is also a police reform in itself. Data mandates tell the police that their actions are being tracked. As several researchers told us, the existence of data alone can change how the police behave.
Percent of people who reported being a driver in a traffic stop the previous year
Data: Police-Public Contact Survey. Only Americans 16 or older counted.
Change in traffic stops in Los Angeles
Source: California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board reports. “Other violations”
include violations marked as “equipment” and “non-moving.”
Percent of roadway deaths marked as ‘unknown’ race in Pennsylvania
Data: Analysis of Fatality Analysis Reporting System.
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