Disproportionate stops of minority drivers declines in Iowa City

IOWA CITY — New data has found that while the disproportionality of traffic stops for minority drivers by Iowa City police officers has declined in recent years, African-American and Hispanic drivers still are stopped more often than white and Asian drivers.

Following up from a 2014 report that found minority drivers were more likely than whites to be stopped, searched and arrested by Iowa City police officers, St. Ambrose University professor Christopher Barnum on Tuesday presented the Iowa City Council with an updated report. It includes police data through last year.

The results showed that while disproportionality is trending down, it remains present in traffic stops of minority drivers.

One of the most pointed findings in the report was that, when stopped by police, minority drivers were asked twice as often by an officer to submit to a voluntary search than white and Asian drivers, who were grouped together as non-minorities for the study. During those searches, however, hit rates by officers were the same between minority and non-minority drivers.

'The police tend to ask that question more often of minority drivers than non-minority drivers,' Barnum said.

Barnum noted that data presented Tuesday did not represent an exact science and must take into account a margin of error.

Data looked at traffic stops and the outcomes of stops compared to U.S. Census Bureau data and roadside observations, to identify differences that represent disproportionality.

Of more than 55,000 traffic observations made in the survey, more than 27,000 took place last year. Disproportionality was less prevalent in areas where traffic stops were more common.

Iowa City was broken down into one-square-mile blocks, with downtown accounting for more than 40 percent of all traffic stops. The block that includes the Broadway neighborhood saw more than 10 percent of all traffic stops, both day and night.

Across the city, minority drivers were about 28 percent more likely to get a citation than were white or Asian drivers, and nearly twice as likely to be arrested.

That number shows a decline in disproportionality compared to Barnum's report in 2014, which found that in addition to being stopped at a disproportionate rate, minority drivers were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested on a traffic stop and 3.45 times more likely to be asked by an officer to have their vehicles searched than non-minority drivers.

'Disproportionality in arrests has clearly been coming down since 2011,' Barnum said.

In Tuesday's report, Iowa City police were 1.7 times more likely to stop a minority driver than a non-minority driver. Two officers were more than four times more likely to stop minority drivers.

Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine said underlying factors might contribute to the numbers.

'We're looking at the situation,' he said. 'I can't say definitively we don't have a problem, but we're also having that discussion.'

Hargadine noted that ongoing efforts to address disproportionality by the Iowa City Police Department include annual training on race based traffic stops and diversity training for officers.

Iowa City staff plan to return to the council with recommendations on further study and action to address disproportionality.

Iowa City police began collecting demographic data on traffic stops years ago in response to community concerns about racial profiling by the department's officers.

Barnum, a former Cedar Rapids police officer, analyzed traffic stop data from 2005-2007 and 2010-2012, which was presented to the Iowa City Council in 2014. Iowa City police officers were not aware of the study until it was completed.

Barnum said Iowa City and Davenport are the only two Iowa communities surveying racial disproportionality.

The topic of racial profiling reached state Capitol this year.

A proposal shepherded by Sen. Robert Dvorsky, D-Coralville, would have required police to collect data on officer stops and complaints, which would have been monitored by the state attorney general's office for potential profiling trends.

The proposal did not advance.