FRANK R. BAUMGARTNER
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
NC Traffic Stops
In 1999, North Carolina became the first state in the country to mandate the collection of data whenever a police officer stops a motorist. Since January 1, 2000, the State Highway Patrol has been collecting these data, and since January 1, 2002, all sizable police departments in the state have done so. The data are made publicly available by the NC Department of Justice through a web site listed below. However, the state has never issued any reports based on analyses of the data collected. In 2011 I was asked to help compile some statistics for the North Carolina Advocates for Justice, and with my graduate student Derek Epp, I did so. Since then, I have been active in a series of analyses of particular elements of these data, in particular the racial characteristics of stops and searches in different communities. Our first in-depth analysis was a treatment of racial disparities in Durham. Click on the links below to see various elements of these analyses.
NEW (November 2023): State-wide and individual agency reports for the 20 largest NC police agencies, 2002-2020 reviewing patterns of traffic stops and racial disparities, including officer-level comparisons, for officers with large numbers of stops. November 14, 2023.
(February 2022): Benchmarking Traffic Stop Data: Examining Patterns in North Carolina and the City of Raleigh. February 1, 2022.
Click on the links below to download excel spreadsheets with the underlying data supporting the reports above. Names of the files indicate how the data are aggregated (total, yearly, by day of the year, by hour and day of the week, by hour of the day, and whether the spreadsheet refers to the entire state, or is divided by agency. All agencies are included in these files, identified by their agency name and/or a numeric identifier. These detailed spreadsheets allow a variety of analyses for police leaders, community groups, and others.
File Description Statewide By Agency Totals for 2002-2020 Totals-statewide.xlsx Totals-by-agency.xlsx Yearly summaries Yearly-statewide.xlsx Yearly-by-agency.xlsx Daily summaries (allows analysis of seasonal effects) Daily-statewide.xlsx Daily-by-agency.xlsx Hour of week summaries (allows analysis of day / night and day-of-week differences) Hour-of-week-statewide.xlsx Hour-of-week-by-agency.xlsx Hour of day summaries Hour-of-day-statewide.xlsx Hour-of-day-by-agency.xlsx
NEW: Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race, by Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, and Kelsey Shoub. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Updated tables and figures through 2020, as compared to 2016 in the book as published.
NEW: Christiani, Leah, Kelsey Shoub, Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, and Kevin Roach. 2021. Better for Everyone: Black Descriptive Representation and Police Traffic Stops. Politics, Groups, and Identities. doi: 10.1080/21565503.2021.1892782. Article text. Supplemental information. R command file and data file.
NEW: Epp, Derek A., and Macey Erhardt. 2020. The use and effectiveness of investigative police stops. Politics, Groups, and Identities. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2020.1724160
NEW: Baumgartner, Frank R., Kate Bell, Luke Beyer, Tara Boldrin, Libby Doyle, Lindsey Govan, Jack Halpert, Jackson Hicks, Katherine Kyriakoudes, Cat Lee, Mackenzie Leger, Sarah McAdon, Sarah Michalak, Caroline Murphy, Eyan Neal, Olivia O’Malley, Emily Payne, Audrey Sapirstein, Sally Stanley, and Kathryn Thacker. 2020. Intersectional Encounters: Representative Bureaucracy and the Routine Traffic Stop. Policy Studies Journal, forthcoming. Article text; Appendix; replication files.
NEW: Shoub, Kelsey, Derek A. Epp, Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani, and Kevin Roach. 2020. Race, Place, and Context: The Persistence of Race Effects in Traffic Stop Outcomes. Journal of Race and Ethnic Politics, forthcoming. Article text; Appendix; replication data; replication do-file.
NEW: Fliss, Mike, Frank R. Baumgartner, Paul Delamater, Steve Marshall, Charles Poole, and Whitney Robinson. 2020. Re-Prioritizing Traffic Stops to Reduce Motor Vehicle Crash Outcomes and Racial Disparities. Injury Epidemiology forthcoming.
Click here to read the section of the NC General Statutes § 114-10-1 establishing the collection of traffic stops data.
NC Department of Justice Web Site: http://trafficstops.ncdoj.gov/. Thanks to the NC DOJ for providing the underlying database to us in June 2014 and for answering technical questions about its structure. As of 2017 there were over 22,000,000 observations in the database.
In December 2015 Ian Mance of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice launched a new web site: https://opendatapolicingnc.com/, which makes available all the data from the NC state web site listed above, but in a more user-friendly manner.
SBI Form 122, a blank version of the form filled out by officers.
Read a full article based on our analysis of these official statistics:
Baumgartner, Frank R., Derek A. Epp, Kelsey Shoub, and Bayard Love. 2017. Targeting Young Men of Color for Search and Arrest during Traffic Stops: Evidence from North Carolina, 2002-2013. Politics, Groups, and Identities 5, 1: 107-131.
- Media coverage
--- In
traffic stops, disparity in black and white, Asheville (NC) Citizen
Times, by Tonya Maxwell, August 27, 2016
--- Black Dignity Matters: Research shows that police do subject African Americans to much greater unwarranted scrutiny and harsher treatment, Reason.com, by Ronald Bailey, July 15, 2016
--- Color-Conscious Drug Warriors Breed Mistrust: Two recent studies confirm anecdotal evidence of racial disparities in police treatment of drivers and pedestrians, Reason.com, by Jacob Sullum, August 1, 2016.
See an overview presentation of state-wide data and trends as of July 2015. Update presented to the UNC Institute of African-American Research, September 2015. See a video of this IAAR talk. See a preliminary analysis of contraband finds in Charlotte, also from July 2015. The typical contraband "hit" is a very small amount.
See a recent New York Times investigation of the issue, covering some of our research as well as that of others:
--- The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black, by Sharon LaFraniere and Andrew W. Lehren, The New York Times, October 24, 2015.
--- New
York Times
story spotlights racial disparities in Greensboro policing, by Joe
Killian, Greensboro News & Record, October 27, 2015.
--- How do we defuse tensions between African-Americans and the police? by Eric Frazier, Charlotte Observer, October 29, 2015.
--- Greensboro police halt minor traffic stops in response to racial disparity concerns, by Katie Elizabeth Queram, Greensboro News & Record, November 10, 2015.
--- Greensboro Puts Focus on Reducing Racial Bias, by Sharon LaFraniere, The New York Times, November 11, 2015
--- Data show black males more likely to be searched during traffic stops throughout North Carolina, by Margaret Moffett, Greensboro News & Record, November 22, 2015.
Bar chart and statistics showing the probability of being searched by Age Group, Gender, and Race.
Note: On October 1, 2014, Durham police enacted a policy requiring that officers obtain written permission before conducting a consent search. This reform was enacted as a result of pressure from citizen groups alleging racial bias, partly on the basis of our analysis of official statitics as in the report above.
--- See news coverage from the Durham Herald-Sun and Raleigh News and Observer about that decision.
--- See New York Times coverage: Activists Wield Search Data to Challenge and Change Police Policy, By Richard A. Oppel Jr., Nov. 20, 2014.
News coverage of the written consent policy from July 2015 and later:
---Durham traffic stops, searches down; concerns about disparities continue, by Virginia Bridges, Raleigh News and Observer, May 10, 2017.
--- Durham discusses community and police divide, by Virginia Bridges. Raleigh News and Observer, July 21, 2015.
--- Durham’s probable-cause searches rise after consent policy is implemented, by Virginia Bridges. Raleigh News and Observer, July 21, 2015.
--- City Council takes a look at traffic stop issues, by Lauren Horsch, The Durham Herald Sun, Jul. 23, 2015
--- RTI study finds racial disparities in Durham police traffic stops, by Mark Schultz and Thomasi McDonald, Raleigh News and Observer, March 17, 2016
A number of cities across the state have now mandated written consent, rather than oral or verbal consent for searches conducted without probable cause. Below are the dates at which each city mandated the change, and a copy of the form, if available. For the cases of Fayetteville and Durham, with enough data before and after the reform, we have produced a short report on the consequence of the reform as well.
--- Fayetteville. Form, mandated as of March 2, 2012. Analysis, June 2015.
--- Durham, Form, mandated as of October 1, 2014. Analysis, July 2015.
--- Carrboro, July 1, 2015
--- Chapel Hill, July 1, 2015
Click here to open a poster showing the rates at which drivers are searched by race, gender, and age group, for 48 North Carolina police agencies. This is similar to the bar chart produced in the New York Times article cited above. The poster is suitable for printing, but note that it has a large format: 48 x 36 inches.
Click here to see a similarly formated (48 x 36 inches) poster showing the rates at which individual police officers search black and white drivers, across the same 48 North Carolina police agencies.
Analyses of individual police departments.
For each of the cities listed below, click on the links to download a two-page summary report, a longer statistical summary of racial differences in traffic stops and searches, or a spreadsheet listing Black and White driver stops and searches for each officer ID number identified in the database, and the ratio of the percent of Black and White drivers searched by that officer. For a full explanation of the tables and analyses, see our more extensive report on Durham, above. The reports below follow an identical format and provide basic summaries about traffic stops from 2002 through 2013 for each police agency listed.
Additional reports for selected smaller jurisdictions
Carrboro Summary | Report | Spreadsheet
Chapel Hill Summary | Report | Spreadsheet
Chatham County Sheriff Report | Spreadsheet
Elizabeth City Report | Spreadsheet
Fuquay Varina Report | Spreadsheet
Garner Report | Spreadsheet
Gastonia Report | Spreadsheet
Guilford County Sheriff Report | Spreadsheet
Holly Springs Report | Spreadsheet
Kinston Report | Spreadsheet
Lenoir Report | Spreadsheet
Lexington Report | Spreadsheet
Orange County Sheriff | Report | Spreadsheet
Roanoke Rapids Report | Spreadsheet
Wake Forest Summary | Report | Spreadsheet
Updates in 2017, based on data from 2002 through 2016, for the largest agencies:
State-wide database showing stops, searches, and contraband hits by race, by agency, by year, as well as rates and comparisons of rates for different racial groups compared to whites, 2002-2016, includes only drivers, excludes checkpoints; same data as used in our book, Suspect Citizens. (See the "codebook" tab for a discription of each variable)
Checkpoint stops: same data as above, but for checkpoints. Includes passengers as well as drivers. Data on checkpoints are generally not collected unless an "adverse outcome" results, such as a search or arrest. Data on checkpoints are available only from 2010.
Charlotte PD Report | Spreadsheets showing search rates by officer: Black-White | Hispanic-White
News coverage of our report: 9 investigates 10 years of traffic stops, finds racial disparities WSOC-TV, Charlotte, November 10, 2017.
News coverage of the reports and cases listed above:
--- Police Divided Over How to Respond to Traffic Stop Data, by Dave Collins, Associated Press, December 7, 2017
--- Study Spotlights CMPD Traffic Stops and Searches, by Will Kennedy, WCCB-TV, Charlotte, November 14, 2017
--- 9 investigates 10 years of traffic stops, finds racial disparities, WSOC-TV, Chrlotte, November 10, 2017
--- Race And Policing: Are We Addressing The Issue The Right Way?, by Aaron Keck, Chapelboro.com, September 30, 2016
--- Traffic Data Shows Link Between Race and Police Searches, by Aaron Keck, Chapelboro.com, August 3, 2016
--- Carrboro Police to Conduct Own Review of Racial Profiling Report, Chapelboro.com, Jun 30, 2015
--- New Website Details Racial Disparities Among Police Searches, by Blake Hodge, Chapelboro.com, December 17, 2015
--- A 'different kind of policing': Carrboro makes changes to combat racial bias, by Katie Jansen, The Durham Herald-Sun, November 26, 2015
--- Durham black-white driver search gap grows, by Virginia Bridges, Durham News, November 24, 2015
--- 'I was terrified': Raleigh man says he became traffic-stop statistic. WRAL-TV (Raleigh, NC), July 28, 2015
--- Racial
disparity in traffic searches prompts investigation, by Eric Ginsburg,
Triad City Beat, July 22, 2015
--- Differential
Policing by Neighborhood, by Frank R. Baumgartner, TheUrbanNews.com, June 11, 2015
--- Orange County group sends police chiefs, sheriff advice for fighting police bias, by Tammy Grubb, Chapel Hill News, May 26, 2015
--- Blacks still targeted by traffic stops in NC, by Cash Michaels, Editor, The Carolinian, April 26, 2015
--- The Racial Imbalance in Traffic Stops Persists, by Lauren Kirchner, Pacific Standard, April 16, 2015
--- Driving While Black Has Actually Gotten More Dangerous in the Last 15 Years, by Jaeah Lee, MotherJones.com, April 15, 2015
--- Traffic Study: Blacks two times more likely to get searched by police during stops in Wilmington, by Alex Giles, Wect.com, April 14, 2015
--- Study: Black drivers more likely to get searched during traffic stops in NC, by Steve Crump, WBTV.com, April 13, 2015
--- Racial disparity in Charlotte traffic stops grows, study finds, by Michael Gordon, Charlotte Observer, April 11, 2015
--- Bias behind the badge, by Lauren Kent, The Daily Tar Heel, February 5, 2015
--- Police may adopt written consent for traffic-stop searches, by Mark Schultz, Chapel Hill News, January 6, 2015
--- UNC study questions traffic stops in Roanoke Rapids, By Erin Carson, Roanoke Rapids Daily Herald, December 16, 2014
North Carolina Advocates for Justice Report on Racial Disparities in Police Stops of Vehicles, 2000 through 2011. These technical reports were based on official statistics provided by the NC Department of Justice and relate to each traffic stop in the state from January 1, 2000 through June 2011. The report was submitted to the Governor, Attorney General, and leaders of both parties in both chambers of the NC legislature in April 2012. In June 2012, it was leaked to the press.
Task Force Report (Executive Summary)
Baumgartner-Epp report
Baumgartner-Epp appendices
Caveat: Note that in the analyses above, we found an error in the county-level analysis. We do not recommend analyzing the data by county, since police departments do not necessarily correspond to counties. In addition, the data supplied by the SBI for the Highway Patrol use a different set of codes (patrol districts) that do not correspond to counties. Therefore, not only are counties not the approrpriate unit of analysis, but we also made errors in the allocation of Highway Patrol stops to various counties. We apologize for these errors and recommend that the county-level analyses in the report be ignored.
Caveat: Also note that we included passengers in the analysis above. This is incorrect as data on passengers (as well as those occurring at checkpoints) is required to be collected only when searches occur; therefore we do not know how many passengers were stopped. While this was an error, the practical implications of this are very small, as there are comparatively very few passengers in the database.
These two caveats are based in part on a highly critical report commissioned by the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police, available at this link. That report is correct to criticize us for these two particular errors, but it does not detract from or indeed even attempt to challenge our main finding that Black drivers have a 77 percent increased likelihood of being searched, compared to Whites, and that Hispanic drivers see a 96 percent increased risk of search.
Racial Disparities in Police Traffic Stops in North Carolina, 2000-2011, Presentation to the North Carolina Commission on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System, September 19, 2013. This is a follow-up to the April 2012 report above, and focuses on officer-level disparities in search rates. It makes some suggestions for improvement in data collection practicies.
Raul Pinto of the ACLU of North Carolina published this report making very similar suggestions to those we reached in the report above.
Related media articles:
--- WUNC story: Durham Community Groups Want End To Alleged Police "Racial Profiling" By Leoneda Inge May 23, 2014.
--- Radio interview with Frank Stasio on WUNC's State of Things, The Debate Over Racial Profiling In The Durham Police Department, 9 May 2014 (31 minutes of audio); text summary also available on the same web site.
--- Black
Drivers 77 Percent More Likely to be Stopped and Searched by Police in
North Carolina.
BreakingBrown.com, October 1, 2013.
--- Will Hagle, Study
Of Traffic Stops In North Carolina Shows Significant Racial Bias.
OpposingViews.com September 30, 2013.
--- Nicole Flatow, North Carolina Police 3 Times More Likely To Arrest Blacks After Seat Belt Violation, Study Finds, ThinkProgress.org September 30, 2013.
--- Jim Wise, Traffic-stop numbers show racial bias across North Carolina. Raleigh News and Observer, September 29, 2013.
--- Jim Wise, Durham study supports traffic-stop disparity claims. Durham News, September 26, 2013.
--- Andrew Barksdale, Report: Blacks, Hispanics in North Carolina get searched by police more than whites. Fayetteville Observer, June 22, 2012
--- Ian A. Mance, "Racial Profiling in North Carolina: Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops 2000 to 2011." Trial Briefs, June 2012: pp. 23-27.
--- UNC Public Radio, Targeting Minorities, The State of Things, with Frank Stasio, August 23, 2012. (20 minutes of audio)
--- ACLU urges NC racial profiling victims to come forward, WRAL.com, September 18, 2012.
--- Study: Hispanics, African Americans searched more often in NC, WCNC.com, September 19, 2012.
--- Terry S. Johnson, North Carolina Sheriff, And Deputies Accused Of Discrimination And Targeting Of Latinos For Deportation, HuffingtonPost.com, September 19, 2012.
Official Web Sites in various states and localities with similar data:
My analysis focuses solely on North Carolina, but several other states include simliar data
Missouri: http://ago.mo.gov/VehicleStops/
Connecticut: http://s429795233.onlinehome.us
Texas: https://www.txdps.state.tx.us/director_staff/public_information/reports.htm
(click on Traffic Stops Data Reports)
Our 2017 article analyzing over 55 million traffic stops across the nation, based on all available data we can find, including North Carolina, Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut as well as the State Highway Patrols in Vermont, Florida, and Texas. In addition, we analyzed published reports from various individual police agencies where available.
Baumgartner, Frank R., Leah Christiani, Derek A. Epp, Kevin Roach, and Kelsey Shoub. 2017. Racial Disparities in Traffic Stop Outcomes. Duke Forum for Law and Social Change 9: 21-56 . Click here for a copy of the spreadsheet showing traffic stop statistics for over 600 yearly police agency results throughout the country, on which our study is based.
- Media coverage
---Cops in Cook County among worst, huge study of traffic stops across U.S. finds, InjusticeWatch.org, by Sam Hart, February 28, 2017.
---Study reveals racial discrepancy in Evanston police searches following traffic stops, by David Fishman, The Daily Northwestern, March 7, 2017.
A new initiative to make available public records of the court system.
Beginning in 2015, a group of attorneys and government transparency advocates have been working to make publicly available data from the NC court system. As an example of what they could do, they have posted this analysis of who gets arrested, over a six month period, for the charge of possession of less than 1/2 ounce of marijuana, with no other charge. The results show dramatic racial disparities.
Controversies in Texas Relating to Traffic Stops by the Texas Highway Patrol (Department of Public Safety).
Concerning the Sandra Bland Act, a bill introduced in 2017:
-A Houston Chronical series about problems in compliance with the law, from 2020:
---Editorial: No need to wait on Austin for police reform. Local officials can act now. Houston Chronicle. July 7, 2020.
---Texas police to be asked again for race data on traffic stops. This time it will be useful. By Eric Dexheimer, Houston Chronicle, June 29, 2020.
---Texas was supposed to collect racial-profiling data. It left out most of the ‘racial’ part. By Eric Dexheimer , Taylor Goldenstein and St. John Barned-Smith, Houston Chronicle, June 25, 2020.
-Previous stories about the Sandra Bland Act and DPS compliance with it:
---DPS handpicks ex-cop for $194,000 racial profiling analysis, by Sean Collins Walsh, June 30, 2017, Austin American Statesman.
--- DPS troopers getting race right after KXAN investigation, by Brian Collister, March 1, 2017, KXAN-TV.
--- Texas lawmakers call for stronger prohibitions on racial profiling, by Jeremy Schwartz and Eric Dexheimer, February 3, 2017, Austin American-Statesman.
Legislative testimony by Baumgartner and others to the Texas House of Representatives, Committee on County Affairs, September 20, 2016. Testimony. Link to the related North Carolina published research. Link to the officer-level spreadsheet for Texas.
---DPS: What Racial Profiling Problem? by Michael Barajas, September 22, 2016, The San Antonio Current.
--- Statesman Investigates: Racial profiling claims in Texas traffic stops, September 9, 2016, Austin American-Statesman.
--- Not so black and white, by Eric Dexheimer, Jeremy Schwartz and Christian McDonald, September 9, 2016, Austin American-Statesman.
--- Cameras, complaints and questions, by Sean Collins Walsh, September 9, 2016, Austin American-Statesman.
--- How we analyzed DPS stops data, by Christian McDonald, September 9, 2016, Austin American-Statesman.
--- DPS searches Hispanics more, finds less, Statesman analysis shows, by Eric Dexheimer, Christian McDonald and Jeremy Schwartz, December 5, 2015. Austin American-Statesman.
Update on Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops Statistics from the Texas Department of Public Safety Using 2016 Data, Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani, and Kevin Roach, April 26, 2017.
Legislative testimony by Baumgartner and others to the Texas House of Representatives, Committee on County Affairs, about problems in data collection by the Texas Department of Public Safety, November 18, 2015.
--- DPS statistics showing no racial bias in stops are wrong, expert says, by Eric Dexheimer and Jeremy Schwartz, November 22, 2015, Austin American-Statesman.
--- Report
finds racial bias in traffic stops by Texas troopers, by the Associated
Press, November 23, 2015, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
--- Clearer analysis of DPS traffic stops needed, by the Editorial board, November 27, 2015. Austin American-Statesman.
--- Texas troopers ticketing Hispanic drivers as white, by Brian Collister and Jim Ellis, November 9, 2015, updated January 12, 2016, KXAN-TV.
--- Racial disparity alleged in DPS stops, by Jeremy Schwarts and Tim Eaton, August 25, 2015, Austin-American Statesman.
--- Blacks stopped by DPS in Waller more likely to be cited than whites, by Tim Eaton, Christian McDonald and Jeremy Schwartz, August 15, 2015, Austin American-Statesman.
updated: November 30, 2023.