Evidence of Racial Profiling in the University of Chicago Police Department
From: Eric Langowski, Harris School of Public Policy
To: Eric Heath, Associate Vice President for Safety & Security.
The University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) polices about 50,000 Chicagoans, of which about 50% are African American. UCPD releases a variety of data daily on its activities which show that African Americans are stopped, searched, and cited at rates higher than any other racial group. Including that:
- Since 2015, 73.3% of traffic stops and 93.7% of street interviews UCPD conducted were with African Americans
- During traffic stops, African Americans received citations at almost double the rate of non-African Americans (13.5% vs. 6.9%)
- UCPD searches 1 out of 39 African American drivers it stops, compared to 1 out of 268 non-African Americans motorists, with 95.0% of all vehicle searches conducted on African Americans
- Half of all searches conducted on African Americans ended without a citation
- 36 out of 37 traffic stop searches in 2019 were conducted on African American drivers
- In 2019, African Americans were cited at 10.8% and non-African Americans were cited at 6.0%
I offer the following recommendations.
First, to release traffic stop and interview data which includes unique, anonymous identifiers for UCPD officers. This will allow the public to complete a more thorough review of UCPD policies, similar to how the Independent Review Committee (IRC) anonymously identifies the number of officers with multiple complaints.
Second, to completely release final decisions from UCPD’s internal review and discipline procedure process. While the IRC is a valid form of transparency, UC essentially only releases information about decisions of the IRC and not about the UCPD internal process, even though this process is the one which makes the actual determination.
Third, to conduct an internal investigation of racial bias in UCPD run by the IRC or some similar body made of faculty, students, and community members. The analysis presented here raises serious questions about racial bias in UCPD. It is entirely possible that some or all of the data identified as biased could be explained by factors unknown to the public. Additionally, the appearance of racial bias alone can be critically damaging to a department’s legitimacy.
Fourth, to undertake annual transparency reports of racial bias in UCPD. Even if racial bias is inadvertent due to other factors not captured in this analysis, the appearance of such disparate racial outcomes in UCPD’s data necessitates formal and consistent attention from UC if UCPD is to be legitimate when policing African American non-affiliates. The continued reevaluation of issues around race and the department will allow UCPD to enter into dialogue with community members and to ultimately create a more effective department. Additionally, an annual report could highlight community policing or positive interactions between UCPD and community members which would otherwise go unnoticed.
Check out the full analysis here.
The raw data from UCPD is available here.