Stop Using Minor Traffic Stops as an Excuse to Randomly Search Cars
Police officers spend an enormous amount of time and resources on traffic patrol, which involves pulling over motorists for minor infractions. However, traffic stops have become police surveillance tools, allowing officers to search vehicles for guns, drugs, or other illicit items. Unfortunately, these searches often extend to areas well out of reach, such as the backseat, trunk, or under the hood, based on the driver's supposed consent.
According to Los Angeles Times, these types of police stops and searches disproportionately affect people of color, particularly Black drivers. The stops have caused resentment and mistrust of police in the Black community and have also contributed to needless police violence when encounters escalate from routine to tense and sometimes fatal.
Police departments argue that they are merely going where the crime is and more intensely police parts of town where drivers are more likely to be carrying dangerous contraband. However, a series of Times stories from 2019 found that even though Black and Latino drivers were searched more, contraband was disproportionately found not in their cars but in cars driven by white motorists.
The use of pretextual stops is a failed crime strategy that has not helped lower the crime rate. Furthermore, the state report on annual police traffic stop data statewide showed similarly disproportionate stops by race. It also revealed that the use of force on Black drivers was 2.2 times the rate with white drivers.
California Senator Steven Bradford has proposed a bill that would eliminate minor police traffic stops for infractions that could easily be handled with a citation sent by mail. This would not erode street safety and would help end traffic stops as a pretext for police surveillance and racially disproportionate enforcement.
It's time to move forward with this bill and end traffic stops as a pretext for police surveillance and racially disproportionate enforcement. Let's work towards building trust between communities of color and law enforcement.
Sources:
- Los Angeles Times
- CNN