New Groundbreaking Study Slams Oakland Police for Racial Bias Against African-Americans

A new study published by researchers from Stanford University in the state of California, United States has revealed that officers at the Oakland Police Department (OPD) have been treating African-Americans in the city with more contempt than any of the race in the city.

The city of Oakland is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. According to a 2010 census, the city has a population of 390,724. Of this, 34.5% of the population is white, 28% is African-American, and 25.4% is Latino.

The OPD has been under federal monitoring for more than a decade, now, since Delphine Allen and other plaintiffs filed a civil lawsuit in a Federal District Court regarding police misconduct in the city. In 2010, OPD officers were made to start wearing body cameras, to gather evidence of their alleged misconduct.

The two-year study by the Stanford researchers was conducted in close collaboration with OPD officials. The researchers examined data from body camera footage, police stops and reports, as well as surveying residents and communities in the city. It is said the study had a federal order to collect and analyze police stops data by race. The study found racial disparities in how OPD officers treated African Americans on routine traffic or pedestrian stops.

The researchers analyzed traffic stop data from police body cameras that occurred between April 1, 2013, and April 30, 2014. During this period, 28,119 traffic and pedestrian stops were recorded by 510 police officers.

With audio recordings from a one-month period, the researchers scrutinized more than 157,000 words, including the specific language and tone that officers used with residents during traffic stops. They tracked words related to respect or anxiety, and words that reveal how the interaction went, and how the resident experienced the interaction with the officer.

The researchers also examined more than 1,000 police reports or narratives on traffic stops and surveyed more than 400 Oakland residents about their views on police-community issues.

At the end of the study, the researchers found that 60% of police stops in the city, which is nearly 17,000 stops, were against African-Americans. This rate is more than three times that of the next most common race, Latinos and Whites. It is said Whites accounted for only 13%.

Also, the researchers discovered that when officers report being able to identify the race of the person before stopping them, the person stopped is much more likely to be an African-American. African-American men were more likely to be handcuffed during a stop (1 out of 4 times), than Whites (1 out of 15 times). African-American men were also more likely to be searched (1 in 5 times vs. 1 in 20 times for Whites). African American men were more likely to be arrested after a stop by police –1 in every 6 vs. 1 in 14 for White men.

The researchers suggested 50 measures to improve police-community relations, such as better data collection, bias training, and changing cultures and systems.

Lead researcher of the study Jennifer Eberhardt, an associate professor of psychology at Stanford said racial bias by the city’s police department is no longer a speculation, as empirical evidence has proved it.

She said: “Racial disparities are real as this research shows. Differences exist in how police officers treated African Americans compared to those of other ethnic groups.”

Eberhardt also urged OPD officials to share its data publicly, in order to identify new ways to build better ties between law enforcement and residents, adding that “transparency and data will set you free.”

Commenting on the study, Oakland Police Assistant Chief, Paul Figueroa said the study will not benefit the city alone, but will help to improve policing across the United States, adding that they have started to implement some of the recommendations made by the researchers.

“This report provides a road map forward for the Oakland Police Department and police agencies across the country. This critical work moves from data collection to action. Oakland has already implemented many of the recommendations in the report and will move quickly to implement the remaining item,” he said.

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