A statewide report released Thursday by the Attorney General's office found that last year African American drivers were 57 percent more likely to be pulled over by police than white drivers.Watch my KY3 News @ 10 report HERE.
The report found that several counties in the Ozarks, including Stone, Lawrence and Christian, stopped African-Americans at a higher rate than the state average, and at a higher percentage than proportional to the black population there.
Greene County fell below the statewide racial disparity average, but Springfield was above it.
The disparity index compares the proportion of stops for drivers of a particular race or ethnicity to the proportion of state or local population of that racial or ethnic group. A value of 1 represents no disparity; values over 1 indicate over-representation, while values under 1 indicate under-representation.
So does the Ozarks still have a racial profiling problem? Depends who you talk too.
Law enforcement officials say the method used to compile the data is flawed, because it fails to take into account the race of drivers that aren't residents but are passing through the area.
Nevertheless, Attorney General Jay Nixon said the disparity is on the rise.
“The disparity index for African-American drivers increased from 1.42 in 2005 to 1.49 in 2006, while the disparity index for Hispanic drivers went from .97 two years ago to 1.09 last year,” Jay Nixon said. “The numbers for both sets of drivers continue to be a concern. With 635 law enforcement agencies providing data about their traffic stops, there is no single explanation why these disparities exist. But this report is laid out in such a way that the numbers from each agency can be examined, and appropriate questions asked of those agencies.”
You can read the Attorney General's entire 2006 HERE.
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