SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new analysis of Sacramento Police Department traffic stop data has renewed calls for policy reform after the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California found that Black residents accounted for one-third of all traffic stops despite making up just 12% of the city’s population, prompting advocates to urge Sacramento leaders to prohibit police from making stops based solely on non-safety-related traffic violations.
The findings come from an ACLU of Northern California report analyzing 2023-24 traffic stop data collected under California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA), a law enacted in 2015 to collect and analyze data on police stops in an effort to identify and address racial profiling and other disparities in law enforcement.
According to the ACLU, Black residents account for approximately 12% of Sacramento’s population but represented 33% of all traffic stops conducted by the Sacramento Police Department. The organization argues the data reveal significant racial disparities in traffic enforcement that cannot be explained by population alone.
The report also found that Black drivers were 3.1 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers, while more than 70% of those stops involved non-moving violations rather than dangerous driving behavior. More than half of all traffic stops conducted by Sacramento police were for non-moving violations, including missing license plates, expired registration tags and window obstructions.
Despite having the lowest citation rate among racial groups, Black drivers were stopped and searched more frequently than other motorists. The ACLU found Black motorists were 2.1 times more likely to be searched than white motorists, while Latino motorists were 1.5 times more likely to be searched than white motorists.
The report further found that Latino drivers accounted for 38% of all stops involving window-obstruction violations, another category the ACLU identified as commonly used for pretextual traffic stops.
In 90% of traffic stop searches, officers did not seize any weapons, drugs or other contraband. The report also found that only 28% of searches resulted in no warning, citation or arrest, while white drivers received the highest proportion of citations relative to their share of traffic stops.
The ACLU writes, “Most of these stops were for minor vehicle equipment or non-moving violations that pose little risk to traffic safety, such as a missing license plate or expired registration tags. Sacramento police also were more likely to search Black and Latino motorists, the data shows.”
The organization argues many of these encounters are “pretext” stops, in which officers use minor traffic violations as a justification to investigate unrelated criminal activity. According to the ACLU, officers may use these violations “when they don’t have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or probable cause for a search. Since officers have wide discretion to enforce low-level violations, racial bias can play a part in their decisions.”
The report also found Black motorists were overrepresented in stops for non-urgent traffic violations while being underrepresented in stops for urgent public safety violations such as speeding. The ACLU argues this pattern suggests police resources are disproportionately directed toward discretionary enforcement rather than dangerous driving.
According to the ACLU, pretext traffic stops not only contribute to racial disparities but also increase unnecessary interactions between law enforcement and community members while diverting officers from addressing more serious public safety concerns.
In response to those findings, the ACLU of Northern California has launched a campaign encouraging community leaders and residents to advocate for policy changes. The organization is holding in-person events in districts “with the highest rate of pretext stops. The campaign also recently launched an on-the-ground canvassing effort in those communities and has expanded outreach to additional districts to consolidate support for the issue,” the ACLU wrote.
The organization points to cities including Berkeley and San Francisco, which have adopted policies limiting enforcement of certain non-moving traffic violations in an effort to reduce racially disparate policing while maintaining enforcement against dangerous driving offenses.
Carlos Montes-Ponce, senior organizer with the ACLU of Northern California, said seemingly minor traffic stops can quickly escalate into far more serious encounters.
“What may start as a tinted window issue can easily become something much larger,” Montes-Ponce said, noting that Black and Latino individuals are more likely to become involved in the criminal legal system following these interactions than their white counterparts.
As part of its review of Sacramento’s practices, the ACLU said it found little to no departmental policy specifically addressing racially biased traffic enforcement or searches conducted during traffic stops, despite constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.
“It’s a matter of political will. I think there is a good chance if the community comes out and supports it,” Montes-Ponce said.
The ACLU is urging Sacramento policymakers to prohibit officers from initiating traffic stops solely for non-safety-related violations while preserving enforcement authority for dangerous driving behaviors such as speeding, reckless driving and driving under the influence.
By pursuing those policy changes, the organization hopes Sacramento can reduce racial disparities in policing, limit unnecessary law enforcement encounters and better protect marginalized communities that it says continue to bear the greatest impact of current traffic enforcement practices.
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