2 pages
Los Angeles and Philadelphia are among several cities to adopt policies limiting police
use of pretextual stops, except for special circumstances. What do you think- would you
support new policies to limit the use of pretextual stops? Why or why not? Be sure to
include both the advantages and disadvantages of your point of view and demonstrate
critical thinking by considering multiple areas of analysis.
Would you support new policies to limit the use of pretextual stops? Why or why not?
Argument:
Yes
people of color become victims of unnecessary pretextual stops and sometimes face fatality
because of police brutality. Some say that the american laws on traffic stops give police “way
too much power”. There are alot of fatalities involved with pretextual stops including the cases of
Tyre Nichols. Reports say that law enforcement killed nearly 600 people in traffic stops since
2017.
Source-
Racial disparities are particularly notable in stops by police departments, where Black drivers
make up about a third of traffic stops in the hours around midnight, roughly twice the share of
white drivers. Local law enforcement officers are especially likely to search Black and Latino
drivers during nighttime stops, but discovery rates for contraband or evidence are lower than
those of white drivers.
Significant findings from Shoub’s and her colleagues’ analysis of the North Carolina dataset
include:
Blacks were 63 percent more likely to be stopped even though, as a whole, they drive 16
percent less. Taking into account less time on the road, blacks were about 95 percent more
likely to be stopped. Blacks were 115 percent more likely than whites to be searched in a traffic
stop, 5.05 percent for blacks, 2.35 percent for whites (Horn, 2020). Contraband was more likely
to be found in searches of white drivers. So, black drivers were stopped disproportionately more
than white drivers compared to the local population and were at least twice as likely to be
searched, but they were slightly less likely to get a ticket,” Shoub says. “That correlates with the
idea that black drivers were stopped on the pretext of having done something wrong, and when
the officer doesn’t see in the car what he thought he might, he tells them to go on their way.” Out
of almost 36,000 traffic stops that involve at least a curbside or patrol car detention, 46 percent
are in stops of Latino drivers and 36 percent in stops of Black drivers (Horn, 2020)
Counter argument-
Real life example to dismiss counter argument-
Way to limit pretextual stops-
Ways limiting pretextual stops is helping in other states-
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