OPC: January 30, Release

(Washington, DC) The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) released a study of racial and ethnic profiling in the District of Columbia on December 29, 2006. The report, which was an important first step in examining these issues, offered a mixed assessment of whether profiling by the police occurs in Washington, DC.

The study found that African-American and Latino pedestrians who walk in or near some of the city’s major tourist, shopping, and entertainment areas risk being stopped at disproportionately high rates by MPD officers.

The MPD study, which was designed and conducted for MPD by the consultant it hired, Dr. John C. Lamberth, collected pedestrian stop data at five locations and gathered traffic stop data at 20 sites in the nation’s capital.

The MPD study found that at two of the District locations surveyed for pedestrian stops -- the area surrounding the intersection of 17th and Euclid streets, NW, (Adams Morgan) and the area surrounding the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street, NW, (the main intersection in Georgetown) -- African Americans were more likely to be stopped by MPD officers than non-African-Americans. At one of the District locations surveyed, the site in Adams Morgan, Latinos were more likely to be stopped by MPD officers than non-Latinos.

The study used an “odds ratio,” a statistical calculation that compares the likelihood of a particular event occurring between two groups, to determine whether minorities were being disproportionately stopped by MPD officers. According to the study, “the odds ratio is best understood by filling in the blank in the following sentence: ‘If you are a Black motorist/pedestrian, you are ___ times as likely to be stopped as if you were not a Black motorist/pedestrian.’” The study states that an odds ratio of 1.0 means that “Black motorists/pedestrians are no more likely to be stopped than nonminority motorists/pedestrians.”

The study found that the odds ratio for African Americans stopped while walking at the Adams Morgan site was 1.8, making African-American pedestrians nearly twice as likely to be stopped as non-African Americans. The odds ratio at the Georgetown site was 5.8, meaning that African-American pedestrians in that area were stopped at a rate almost six times higher than would be expected in the pedestrian population. The MPD study notes that such a high odds ratio at the Georgetown site “is difficult to explain absent targeting of African-American pedestrians.”