East Hazel Crest

Police Department

2004 Traffic Stop Statistics

 

History

In 2003, the Illinois Legislature passed a law entitled the Traffic Stop Statistical Study that requires police officers to collect data on all traffic stops. Officers are required to collect the name, address, gender and the officer's subjective determination of the race of the person stopped; the person's race shall be selected from the following list: Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Native American/Alaskan Native, or Asian/Pacific Islander. Additional data includes, reason for the stop, make and year of vehicle stopped, location of the stop, was a search conducted, the name and badge number of the officer making the stop.

From January 1, 2004 until December 31, 2007 data must be collected and submitted to the Illinois Department of Transportation by March 1 of the following year. The Illinois Department of Transportation must report the findings to the Governor, General Assembly and law enforcement agencies by July 1.

Benchmarking

Agency benchmark's were determined by the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety. The benchmark for East Hazel Crest was originally set at 48.34. They made that determination based on the population of the 6th Municipal Court District of Cook County. Believing that number was unrealistic and did not accurately reflect the driving population of East Hazel Crest, Chief Ray Robertson submitted documentation to the Center for Public Safety asking for an adjustment in the benchmark. The Center for Public Safety agreed and adjusted the department's benchmark to 65.82. Both benchmarks and the data submitted to adjust the benchmark will appear in the final report.

Our Results

The East Hazel Crest Police Department is pleased to publish our data, almost five months earlier than the date IDOT plans to publish their report.

Traffic stops by race. The department's ratio of stops to the benchmark is 1:1.12. This indicates that the department is very close to the benchmark data on minority traffic stops as compared to the driving population of East Hazel Crest.

Results of traffic stops. The results of the stop indicates the action the police officer took on each traffic stop. The results again are very close when comparing minority populations to caucasians. To verify these numbers were within reason, Chief Robertson contacted the Center for Public Safety. They looked at the numbers and reported the disparity is being driven by the disposition of hispanic stops. We looked at the 140 citations issued to Hispanic drivers. We found that 32% of the citations would be considered mandatory citations, where the officer had no discretion in writing the citation (16 Driving Under the Influence, 19 for No Driver's License and 11 for Driving on a Suspended or Revoked License).

Was a search conducted? The final area that the report will examine is whether a search, specifically a consent search was conducted. The reason the Center for Public Safety has focused on consent searches is it totally at the discretion of the police officer. East Hazel Crest only conducted seven consent searches during the past year. Six were African American and one was a Caucasian driver. The low numbers are statistically insignificant to the 3103 traffic stops that officers made during the year.

Going beyond the requirements.The report will only look at police departments as a whole and not at individual officer statistics. The department is committed to this process and will begin evaulating each officers performance on an individual basis. Additionally, the department provided all officers with cultural diversity training during 2004. We are pleased with the results during the past year and will strive to continue addressing relevant issues in policing.