New study confirms racial disparity in stops

A new national study of  stop and frisk cases confirms what Injustice Watch reported last week about Chicago: There are striking racial disparities.

People of color are more likely to be stopped, questioned, thrown against walls and searched forcibly, the new study reaffirmed. That pattern is directly tied to the significant mistrust between the community and their police.

Given the events last week, the issues that divide the community and the police take on special significance, of course.

The study, by Roland G. Fryer, economics professor at Harvard University, reports: “Using data on NYC’s Stop and Frisk program, we demonstrate that on non-lethal uses of force – putting hands on civilians (which includes slapping or grabbing) or pushing individuals into a wall or onto the ground, there are large racial differences. In the raw data, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to have an interaction with police which involves any use of force.
“Accounting for baseline demographics such as age and gender, encounter characteristics such as whether individuals supplied identification or whether the interaction occurred in a high- or lowcrime area, or civilian behaviors does little to alter the race coefficient.”