10A - Paris Police Racial Profiling Report 2020

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In addition, the validity of the benchmark base-rate becomes even more problematic if analyses fail to distinguish between residents and non-residents who arestopped.This is because the existence of significant proportions of non-resident stops will lead to invalid conclusions if racial/ethnic comparisons are made exclusively to resident population figures. In sum, a valid measure of the driving population does not exist. As a proxy, census data is used which is problematic as an indicator of the driving population. In addition, stopped motorists who are not residents of the city or county where the motor vehicle stop occurred are not included in the benchmark base-rate. Issue #3: Officers Do Not Know the Race/Ethnicity of the Motorist Prior to the Stop As illustrated in Table 4 near the end of this report, of the 3,167motorvehicle stops in 2020, the officer knew the race/ethnicity of the motorist prior to the stop in 7.23% of the stops (229/3,167). This percentage is consistent across law enforcement agencies throughout Texas. An analysis of all annual racial profiling reports submitted to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, as required by the Texas racial profiling law,found that in 2.9% of the traffic stops in Texas, the 3 officer knew the race/ethnicity of the motorist prior to the stop.The analysis included 1,186 Texas law enforcement agencies and more than 3.25 million traffic stops. As noted, the legal definition of racial profiling in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 3.05 is “a law enforcement-initiated action based on an individual's race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than on the individual's behavior or on information identifying the individual as having engaged in criminal activity.” Almost always, ParisPD officers do not know the race/ethnicity of the motorist prior to the stop. This factor further invalidates any conclusions drawn from the stop data presented in Chart 1. If an officer does not know the race/ethnicity of the motorist prior to the stop, then the officer cannot, by legal definition, be racial profiling. Racial profiling is a law-enforcement action based on the race/ethnicity of an individual. If the officer does not know the person’s race/ethnicitybefore the action (in this case, stopping a vehicle), then racial profiling cannot occur. Based on this factor, post-stop outcomes are more relevant for a racial profiling assessment, as presented later inthis report, in comparison to initial motor vehicle stop data disaggregated by race/ethnicity. Once the officer has contacted the motorist after the stop, the officer has identified the person’s race/ethnicity and all subsequent actions are more relevant to a racial profiling assessment than the initial stop data. In short, the methodological problems outlined above point to the limited utility of using aggregate level comparisonsof the rates at which different racial/ethnic groups are stoppedin order to determine whether or not racial profiling exists within a given jurisdiction. Table 1reports the summaries for the total number of motor vehicle stops in which a ticket, citation, or warning was issued, and to arrests made as a result of those stops, by the Paris Police Department in 2020.Table 1and associated analyses are utilized to satisfy the comparative analyses as required by Texas law, and in specific, Article 2.134 of the CCP. 3 Winkler, Jordan M. (2016). Racial Disparity in Traffic Stops: An Analysis of Racial Profiling Data in Texas. Master’s Thesis. University of North Texas.