Field stop data collected by the Department of Public Safety shows that officers conduct stops "in a professional manner" and do not use racial profiling, said Chief of Police Mark Porter. But one University official said the small data sample was not conclusive, and student activists say the data does not match up with their experiences.
DPS stopped 202 people in 2006, 71 percent of them white, according to the report. Blacks made up 16 percent of people stopped, while Hispanics made up 2 percent and Asians made up only 1 percent. 10 percent of those stopped were recorded as being of unknown race. The report also found that 84 percent of people stopped were male.
70 percent of those stopped were unaffiliated with the University. 28 percent were students and 2 percent were staff members, according to the DPS report. Of those stopped, 31 percent were "temporarily detained," 25 percent were interviewed in the field and 24 percent received a warning. 15 percent of the stops were recorded as assisting the Providence Police Department with arrests, according to the analysis of the data.
The Office of Institutional Diversity analyzed the field stop data, taking into consideration the proportion of each racial group in the community. Black male students, blacks unaffiliated with the University and whites unaffiliated with the University were all stopped disproportionately more than their base-rate percentages would indicate. Asians, Hispanics and white females were stopped disproportionately less than would be expected given their presence in the University population.
Black male students made up 7 percent of stops and make up 5 percent of the student population, the analysis found. Blacks unaffiliated with the University made up 17 percent of stops and make up 14.2 percent of the Providence population.
White male students made up 54 percent of field stops involving students affiliated with the University. Whites made up 69 percent of stops of those individuals unaffiliated with the University.
DPS started collecting data on the gender and race breakdown of those stopped by officers in the fall of 2005, hoping to gain information about the types of stops being conducted and the results of those stops. This initiative came as part of DPS' Early Warning System, which follows potentially problematic incidents and identifies officer behavior that may require review or intervention.
Though DPS began collecting data for internal review purposes, it released the report in response to concerns about negative community perceptions about the department. The release of the first report emphasized DPS' ongoing effort to enhance integrity and transparency, Porter said.
"It is critical that we continue our efforts of enhancing our professional integrity and commitment to this community," Porter said. "One way of demonstrating our efforts is by making these reports and other department procedures and services available to the community."
Because there were so few stops, however, it is hard to draw meaningful conclusions from the report, said Brenda Allen, associate provost and director of institutional diversity, who analyzed the data.
"The field stop data is the closest thing we had to address concerns about racial profiling," Allen said. "The general conclusion is that we have the potential to build a database, monitor the data and then when we see a problem we can intervene and be more proactive."
Allen said it is important to ensure that DPS is collecting the right data.
"This was really a case where data collected for one purpose ended up being useful for another," Allen said. "But there might be other things of interest, and if we're using this data for another purpose, we need to make sure we have the right data."
Still, Porter said the data has been "extremely valuable" to the department. For example, in response to the large number of people in the unknown race category, DPS has eliminated the category altogether and trained officers on the proper protocol for recording race.
Porter said the data "certainly tells us that we're not racial profiling," but he said it also shows that the department needs to improve communication with the community.
"It still doesn't solve the major issue of how we as a department can continue to build trust," Porter said. "We need a trust where people can feel that our data is consistent with what we're actually doing."
Indeed, some students said the data was questionable and contrary to anecdotal evidence.
Shane Easter '10, a member of the Coalition for Police Accountability and Institutional Transparency, said the statistics were "very suspicious."
"It just doesn't match up with what we've talked to students about," he said.
Easter also expressed concern about the data collection, saying DPS' control over the process makes it hard to verify that the data is credible.
"Obviously DPS doesn't want to be seen as a racist organization," Easter said. "As it currently stands, the data collection is certainly a good thing to do. We just need to figure out how to do it well."
Josh Teitelbaum '08, another member of Co-PAIT, said the way DPS handles field stops has been the central focus of the group's recent meetings. He said the group is "very concerned" about the way the department conducts and records stops.
Co-PAIT members said they hope to present DPS and the University administration with a policy proposal regarding field stops. Though the group has not come up with a proposal, members have several ideas - for instance, Easter said DPS could give a form of receipt to people who are stopped.
"The way the data collection is being done right now, it doesn't serve a purpose other than to better DPS' image," Easter said. "Co-PAIT is trying to give it a purpose."
