NORTHAMPTON, MASS – Despite fewer numbers of police encounters in 2022, Prison Policy Initiative said nearly 50 million people reported contact with police, and “racial disparities in police interactions, misconduct, and use of force remained pervasive in 2022.”
Prison Policy Initiative released a report on largely 2022’s “contacts between police and the public” by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
However, PPI did note in the 2024 annual report of the California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board, “stop data reveals that people perceived as Native American had the highest search rates (22 percent), followed by people perceived as Black (21 percent). People perceived as white were at 12 percent, Asian (six percent) and Middle Eastern/South Asian (four percent).
Key issues the Prison Policy Initiative highlighted in the report included “heightened levels of police interaction and use of force against young adults, and a growing rate of use of force against women.”
PPI also noted the data revealed pressing racial disparities, where “Black people continued to face higher rates of enforcement actions, police misconduct, and use of force despite having similar rates of contact with police.”
According to Prison Policy Initiative’s analysis of the data, of 30 million calls to the police, only half of them were to report possible crimes, and four percent reported potentially violent crimes. A quarter of the calls reported a non-crime emergency, and another 26 percent of the calls were for non-emergencies.
In its report, Prison Policy Initiative also states how even innocent police interactions can become dangerous, and that this in and of itself “is a sign of the need for community investments and government infrastructure that are better suited to address concerns.”
Prison Policy Initiative argues “traffic stops remain the most common reason for police-initiated contact across all demographics,” stating “these stops are often fraught with racial bias and violence.”
“White people were far more likely than Black people, Hispanic people, and Asian people to initiate contact with the police, for reasons including to report possible crimes and emergencies, to participate in block watches, or to seek other kinds of help from police,” according to the Prison Policy Initiative analysis.
“People of color — and Black people in particular — were more likely to experience police-initiated contact, including street stops, traffic stops, and arrests,” said PPI, adding 45 percent of Black and Hispanic people within the statistics of interactions with the police, were approached by the police, while for different demographics it was 40 percent or less.
Prison Policy Initiative reported a higher percentage of Black people received a warning in street stops than white people, and a higher percentage of Black people within these stops were searched or arrested compared to white people.
Yet, according to the Prison Policy Initiative’s analysis, “Hispanic people were far less likely (11 percent) to receive an enforcement action when stopped than white (24 percent) or Black people (25 percent).
As for traffic stops, as reported by the Prison Policy Initiative, “more than 100 police killings (13 percent) occurred at traffic stops in 2023.”
The PPI report stated 62 percent of “Black people whose most recent contact with police in 2022 were police-initiated…in a traffic stop compared to 56-59 percent among all other groups.”
The Prison Policy Initiative wrote Black drivers were searched or arrested at double the rate of different ethnic groups, commenting, “this represents an increase in the proportion of Black people stopped while driving and subsequently searched or arrested by police.”
Within the analysis category of arrests, the report analysis states, “Black people were more than twice as likely to be searched or arrested during a traffic stop as white people and Hispanic people.”
The report notes a continued use by police of “slurs, bias, and sexual harassment,” and in 2022, Black people experienced four times the amount of police misconduct, compared to white people, with Hispanics experiencing two times the amount of police misconduct, compared to white people.
Lastly, for the threat or use of force, PPI reported, “Black people were over three times as likely as white people to experience the threat or use of force…and more than twice as likely to experience police shouting or cursing at them.”
The Prison Policy Initiative noted the rates of the threat or use of force have decreased for both Hispanic and white communities, while increasing for the Black community.
