Traffic Stops Statistics

It can significantly be seen that race is what officers mostly look for when it comes to pulling someone over. Generally, when a police officer pulls someone over for a pretext stop, it is often someone of color who they might suspect of a crime. A study done in North Carolina from licensed drivers says, “Results suggest that Black drivers, driver age, and vehicle age and speeding are associated with state police warning stops” (Miller 123). This shows that it is more likely for a police officer to stop black and young drivers with just giving them a warning, suggesting that it might have been pretext stop. Police just give these drivers a warning because there was nothing the driver did wrong to being with. It can be connected to a study done in police agencies in Volusia, Florida that says, “…they made these 1,100 stops based …show more content…
It was concluded that a police officer will most likely stop minority citizens in poor neighborhoods since it is one the places officers frequent. In other words, “…most research on traffic stops has been consistent that race is a significant predictor of traffic stops” (Jinhog 352). The main target for the police is minority groups, which include Blacks and Hispanics. The police focus their efforts on stopping minorities since it has been statistically shown that Black and Hispanics are more likely to commit crimes, such as dealing drugs. It can be noted in the case of Whren that, “… police officers used traffic violations as a pretext to stop a car and investigate possible drug offenses; the officers had neither probable cause nor reasonable suspicion to stop the driver for narcotics crime” (Harris 544). No probable cause or reasonable suspicion was shown to stop the driver, who was Black. The officer was suspicions of the driver having drugs in his car because of his race and thus can be concluded that it was a pretext