By Matthew A. Graham, Scarlet Neath, Kim S. Buchanan, Kerry Mulligan, Tracey Lloyd, and Phillip Atiba Solomon

A significant share of the millions of traffic stops made annually are for low-level violations,i such as a single broken taillight or tinted windows, which do not have a clear relationship to traffic safety.ii Officers may pull over drivers for these reasons because they are incentivized to generate a high volume of stops through, for example, performance metrics or grant funding. Officers also use minor violations to conduct what are known as pretextual stops, or an effort to uncover evidence of a serious crime for which they lack reasonable suspicion. Traffic stops have come under increasing scrutiny because of their role in fueling racial disparities in policing and associated harms, including distrust in police,iii financial penalties,iv and police violence. Evidence shows that Black drivers are more likely than White drivers to be pulled over, even though there is no evidence to show that they more frequently commit driving violations. Black drivers are also twice as likely to be searched once stopped–a common feature of a pretextual stop–despite the fact that they are less likely to be found in possession of contraband, such as drugs or weapons.vi This brief aims to shed light on one of the many risks to Black drivers posed by traffic enforcement: police use of force. We draw on data from two sources: CPE’s existing portfolio of work providing agency-specific analyses to local law enforcement agencies

West Hollywood California, Center for Policing Equity, 2024. 9p.