The studies show that people of color are more likely than White people to be pulled over, removed from the car, and searched. But they reveal something else as well: Race is useless as an indicator of criminality. While Blacks and Latinos accounted for 78 percent of those searched at the south end of the New Jersey Turnpike during the year 2000, evidence was more reliably found by searching White people: 25 percent of White people searched had contraband, as compared to 13 percent of Black people and 5 percent of Latinos. According to the North Carolina study, 26 percent of those Black people searched and 33 percent of the White people searched were found to possess contraband.65 In Massachusetts, 16 percent of White people searched were found to possess drugs, as compared to 12 percent of Black people and 10 percent of Latinos.66
In Portland, in 2011, African Americans were the subject of 11.8 percent of all traffic stops and 19.5 percent of all pedestrian stops, though they are only 6.3 percent of the local population. They were searched in 12.6 percent of these stops, which is 3.7 times the rate at which White people were searched. Latinos were stopped at a rate below their portion of the population (6.2 percent of traffic and 6 percent of pedestrian stops, as opposed to 9.2 percent of the census total), but they were searched 8 percent of the time (2.7 times the White rate). Again, police were more likely to find contraband on Whites (42.7 percent of searches) than Blacks (30.5 percent) or Latinos (29.8 percent).67
Crackdown in Seattle
Of course, these biases aren’t limited to traffic and pedestrian stops. In her study of drug arrests in Seattle over a four-month period in 2005 and 2006, University of Washington sociologist Katherine Beckett found that, though Blacks represent only 8 percent of the city’s population, they make up 67 percent of drug arrests. This placed the arrest rate (per 100,000 population) for Blacks at 13.6 times that of Whites, and the arrest rate for selling drugs at 21 times that for whites.68 Even adjusting for different patterns of consuming and distributing narcotics, the disparity remains: Depending on the source, empirical studies suggest that Blacks represent between 11 and 28 percent of Seattle’s drug consumers and between 14 and 28 percent of the city’s drug dealers.69 Direct observation of outdoor drug markets in the Downtown and Capital Hill areas support these estimates: African Americans were 33.3 percent of sellers observed Downtown and 9.1 percent in Capitol Hill, but represented 85.3 and 27.2 percent of arrests in these areas, respectively. In other words, Blacks delivering drugs in Capital Hill were 3.9 times more likely to be arrested, and those Downtown were 13.6 times more likely than “whites engaged in the same behavior in the same geographic area” during the same period of time.70
Beckett’s study considers, tests, and eliminates a variety of possible explanations for the disparity, including different rates of drug use and participation in the drug economy, higher arrest rates for outdoor sales, the geographic concentration of enforcement activity in the Downtown area, and the police focus on crack cocaine.71 Of these, only crack was a statistically significant factor. Of all the city’s drug arrests, 72.9 percent were for crack, and 73.4 percent of those arrested for crack were African American.72 Thus, if one recalculates leaving out crack-related arrests, the Black rate drops from 21 times the White rate to a more modest 2.8.73 This correlation offers some support to the idea that the excessive focus on crack is driving the disproportionate arrest rate.
But then the question arises, why the focus on crack? Looking at data concerning the frequency of crack sales, calls to police reporting drug dealers, public health considerations, and gun violence, Beckett could find no rational reason for the crack obsession.74 She concludes: “Although colorblind on its face, the focus on crack cocaine does not appear to be a function of race-neutral considerations, and continues to produce an extraordinarily high degree of racial disparity in Seattle drug arrests.” She also notes that “it is not possible” to rule out the theory that “the SPD’s focus on black suspects explains the preponderance of crack cocaine arrests,” rather than the other way around.75 In fact, even just looking at crack cases, Blacks are still over-represented, making up 72.9 percent of arrests but (according to drug user surveys) 49.4 percent of dealers.76
Whichever comes first—the focus on Blacks or the focus on crack—it amounts to much the same thing. The result is a disproportionate number of African Americans in police custody. And the impulse behind each approach turns out to be a racist one. In an earlier study, looking at arrests from 1999 to 2001, Beckett drew a sharp conclusion: “the focus on crack,” like the overrepresentation of people of color among those arrested, “reflect[s] a racialized conception of ‘the drug problem.’” The obsession with “the drug most strongly associated with ‘blackness’ suggests that law enforcement policies and practices are predicated on the assumption that the drug problem is, in fact, a black and Latino one, and that crack, the drug most strongly associated with urban blacks, is ‘the worst.’”77 A kind of double profiling takes place. By virtue of their association, the drug is racialized and Blacks are criminalized.
Stop and Frisk: Racial Profiling on Trial
On April 20, 2007, as David Floyd was walking home, three New York police officers approached and asked, “Excuse me, may I speak with you?” Floyd stopped, and the officers demanded to see his ID. He gave it to them, and then, though he explicitly told them he did not consent to a search, they patted him down and looked in his pockets. Finding nothing of interest, they gave him back his driver’s license, warned him to get it updated, and left.78 On the spectrum of police encounters, this incident hardly registers. It was completely banal, entirely routine, the sort of thing that happens all of the time—which is precisely the point.
Between January 2004 and July 2012, the New York City police made 4.4 million stops just like David Floyd’s. In 52 percent of those stops, they frisked the subject; 8 percent of those 2.3 million searches were more extensive—opening jackets, looking in pockets. Eighty-six percent of searches, like Floyd’s, produced no contraband. Also like David Floyd, 52 percent of the people stopped were Black.79
That’s more than twice the African American portion of the local population (23 percent). Altogether, 90 percent of those stopped were people of color. (Hispanics, at 31 percent, were the second-largest group; New York City’s population is 29 percent Hispanic.) Weapons—which are nominally the point of this exercise—were discovered in just 1.5 percent of searches. And as we’ve seen elsewhere, they were more often found on Whites: 1.4 percent of Whites had weapons, while 1.1 percent of Hispanics and 1 percent of Blacks did. Whites were more likely to be carrying drugs or other contraband as well: 2.3 percent, compared to 1.8 percent of Blacks and 1.7 percent of Hispanics. On the other hand, police report using force more often against people of color: in 24 percent of Hispanic stops, 23 percent of Black stops, and 17 percent of White stops. Put differently, Blacks were 30 percent more likely than Whites to have force used against them, and Hispanics were 9 percent more likely.80
Six percent of these stops led to arrest, and another 6 percent led to citations.81 The arrest and citation rates were actually 8 percent lower for Blacks than for Whites (and lower still in majority-Black neighborhoods), suggesting (as a court later found) “that blacks are likely targeted for stops based on a lesser degree of objectively founded suspicion than whites.”82 However, when accused of the same offenses, Blacks were 30 percent more likely than Whites to be arrested rather than cited.83 The most common charges were public consumption of alcohol and disorderly conduct (both violations, the legal equivalent of a parking ticket), and 42 percent of the citations were later dismissed.84
The most common cause for arrest was possession of marijuana, which is troubling for separate reasons: Marijuana has been decriminalized in New York; simple possession is treated as a violation unless it is in public view. In many of these cases, the “public view” only occurred because of the search. Police order a suspect to empty his pockets, the joint that was in his jacket is now in his hand, and a violation-level charge becomes a misdemeanor. The search, in other words,