In 2022, Black drivers made up more than half of the 2,814 traffic stops Oak Park police officers conducted despite only making up about 19% of the population in the village.
White individuals make up about 63% of the population in Oak Park, but are stopped only roughly a third of the time, according to to data from the Investigative Project on Race and Equity.
Overall, traffic stops in Oak Park are down from a high of more than 13,000 in 2006 to 2,814 in 2022, the latest available year for data. However, Black drivers also were more likely to be issued a citation after the stop, the data shows.
This racial gap, the data indicated, is only getting bigger.
WBEZ and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity compiled reports of traffic stop records duirng the past two decades, looking at more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies in Illinois, including the Oak Park, to build a searchable database of them. The reporting showed evidence of increasing racial disparities in policing not only in Oak Park, but also around the state.
The percentage of traffic stops in Illinois with Black drivers has reached its highest level in recent years, according to the analysis. In 2021 and 2022, roughly 30.5% of traffic stops in the state involved Black drivers. In 2004, it was 17.5% of stops. But only 13.6% of Illinois’ adult population was Black at the time of that report.
Data from Free2Move, a Chicago-based nonprofit that works to make traffic stops and safety more equitable, echoes those figures.
“It seemed as if police were really using the traffic safety system and traffic stops as an excuse to stop and target Black and brown drivers and pedestrians and bikers,” said Amy Thompson, staff counsel at Impact for Equity, one of the member organizations of Free2Move. “We were motivated to think about what a traffic safety system could look like that doesn’t rely on that kind of discriminatory behavior and instead makes us all safer.”
The group collected its data through Freedom of Information Act requests to agencies that include the Chicago Police Department and Illinois Department of Transportation, as well as through interviews with drivers who have experienced traffic stops.
Oak Park’s disparity
The figures may come as a shock to Oak Park residents, many of whom pride themselves for their progressive values. In 2014, a village forum was held, spurred by riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of a Black man, Michael Brown.
At the time, Rick Tanksley, Oak Park’s former police chief, talked about joining a department that had problems with race at a community sponsored event. But he produced data that showed how the racial makeup of the Oak Park Police Department mirrored the village. He also showed more data that demonstrated how Black drivers were as likely to be ticketed as a white driver.
Today, according to Oak Park Police Chief Shatonya Johnson, it’s not a matter of internal bias or discrimination. It’s a matter of numbers. The population that lives here is different from the population that commutes in and out of the village, and that affects the ratio of stops, she said.
“We have more individuals that may come from maybe Austin or surrounding communities to shop due to the lack of grocery stores in their communities,” she said. “We do have a different demographic coming in for those reasons.”
Kevin Barnhart, chair of the Citizens Police Oversight Committee, said he doesn’t believe that completely explains the disparity.
“If we were to say that there were more Black drivers in Oak Park, because of the neighboring communities, then there also has to be an assertion that those drivers are somehow driving worse than other drivers to have the numbers,” he said. “If there are more drivers, that doesn’t necessarily mean that should translate to higher percentage of stops.”
Johnson said to prevent bias in its work, the police department has a policy on bias-based policing and trainings on cultural competency.
“We have some of the best trained individuals in the police force,” she said.
Barnhart said the Citizens Police Oversight Committee wants to learn more about the disparity in Oak Park from the police department and affected community members, if possible. He said he did not know when those conversations might happen.
The committee has dealt with a few cases where a traffic stop and resulting interaction caused the driver to question why they were stopped, Barnhart said. The details, he added, are confidential. Anyone looking to make a complaint to the committee can file a report at the police station or online. That helps hold everyone accountable, he said.
“We strive for that in all aspects of policing: accountability and transparency,” Barnhart said.
But because Oak Park provides data on its traffic stops, the police should be willing to discuss it, he said.
Oak Park also adopted the “Shared Principles” of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Illinois National Association for the Advancement of Colored People State Conference, Johnson said. The principles include valuing life, treating everyone with dignity, rejecting discrimination and supporting diversity by recruiting diverse police departments.
Despite those efforts, the data shows that problems persist.
A national issue
Oak Park is not alone – the problem is a national one. Thompson said Black drivers are often pulled over for minor infractions such as improper registration or a headlight not working, but these stops can escalate into something bigger.
“Black and brown drivers may not be given the benefit of the doubt,” she said. “That ends up becoming a dangerous situation.”
A 2020 study from the University of South Carolina showed that Black drivers were 63% more likely to be stopped than white drivers even though, researchers said, they drive about 16% less. As for contraband – a reason cited in support of traffic stops – it was found more during searches of white drivers.
Thompson added she’s heard Black and brown drivers consistently and disproportionately say police will ask if they have a gun or about engagement in criminal activity almost immediately during a traffic stop. White drivers have not reported that same experience, she said. Police may try to search the vehicle by claiming probable cause or by asking for consent, Thompson said, which can prompt individuals to say yes out of fear.
“The problem is that interaction isn’t necessarily indicative of what we normal people might think of as voluntary,” she said. “The experience of a person with a police officer is an inherently coercive situation.”
A common practice that may not work
Traffic stops may seem like they are taking care of an issue, but they have low rates of arrest or citations, Thompson said. For example, in 2022 in Chicago, the citation rate was less than 3.4% of traffic stops, according to Impact for Equity.
“These traffic stops are a huge waste of resources,” she said. “They are not resulting in our streets being any safer.”
Police officers should not be making traffic stops, Thompson said, not only because of the harm from escalating situations but also because of the general negative impact it can have.
“This practice really degrades trust with communities and ends up being counter-productive to law enforcement goals in the first place,” she said.
To address dangerous traffic behavior, changes to infrastructure that lead to safe driving without police intervention should be implemented, Thompson said. Another idea is to have civilian traffic responders who focus solely on keeping roads safer rather than looking for criminal activity. This solution could reduce harmful effects, such as an escalating or dangerous outcome, of the current law enforcement strategy, she said.
The resources dedicated to traffic stops could be invested into community resources instead, Thompson said, such as the education system, employment opportunities or even infrastructure to make traffic safer and better for pedestrians. Change could start on a local level, she said.
“We [the Oak Park Police Department] want to learn from other department’s mistakes,” Johnson said. “We want to make sure that our officers are aware [that] this can happen anywhere, at any time.”
In defense of traffic stops
But some police unions and officers still argue that pulling cars over to search them is necessary to prevent crime, according to a New York Times article.
“We [the Oak Park Police Department] have one of the most renowned and unique community policing philosophy and policy, which definitely leads to reducing crime,” Johnson said.
In Philadelphia, a police union sued to block an ordinance banning certain stops, claiming it violated state laws, according to the article.
In Los Angeles, a police union warned that discouraging stops could allow “guns and killers to remain on the road,” according to the article.
In Virgina, police associations, chiefs and Republican officials campaigned to get rid of a ban on minor stops.
However, many still disagree that traffic stops are necessary to keep streets safe.
“What unites us all is that we all want to have safe communities,” Thompson said. “[But] for individuals who experience these stops over and over again, they don’t think that these stops are making them safer.”
