Contacts Between Police & the Public

The following statistics come from the ACLU of Illinois report “Traffic Stop Consent Searches Across the State of Illinois and by the Illinois State Police,” (July 23, 2008).

Rates of Consent
When Illinois State Police troopers requested consent to search, motorists of all races granted consent at nearly the same rate. Specifically, the rates that motorists grant consent to search are: 93.9% for white motorists; 96.0% for African-American motorists; and 96.4% for Hispanic motorists.

State of Illinois likelihood of consent search and hit rates (by race)
Taking the State of Illinois as a whole, African-American and Hispanic motorists are about 2½ to 3½ times more likely that white motorists to be subjected to consent searches, and when such searches are performed they are only about one-half as likely as white motorists to be found in possession of contraband.

Illinois State Police likelihood of consent search and hit rates (by race)
Taking the Illinois State Police in particular, African-American and Hispanic motorists are about 2 to 4 times more likely than white motorists to be subjected to consent searches, and when such searches are performed they are only about one-half to one-eighth as likely as white motorists to be found in possession on contraband.

The following statistic come from the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics report, “Contacts Between Police and the Public, Findings from the 2002 National Survey” (April 2005). This was the last report to document hit-rate data showing whether minorities were more likely to be hiding contraband. Such numbers were omitted from the 2005 National Survey.

Traffic stop hit rates (by race)
Searches of white drivers or their vehicles were more than four times as likely to find criminal evidence (14.5%) than Searches of black drivers (3.3%) (page 14).