For all the data analysis conducted by The Courant, no other topic comes close to generating the reader reaction we receive when looking at apparent racial disparities in policing.
That was evident once again this week with the release of fresh police-stop data showing – as previous releases have – that statewide, black and Hispanic motorists are stopped and ticketed at higher rates than white drivers.
That led to a flurry of comments on The Courant’s website – more than 100 at last count – most of which took exception to any implication that police officers might be treating minority drivers more harshly. Some were simply self-disproving diatribes – posts that used overtly racist slurs in arguing that racism was non-existent. But others took aim at the statistical methodology applied, some raising legitimate points, others misinterpreting or making incorrect assumptions about the analysis applied.
So, as we have in the past, here’s a primer on the data collected by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project and on the Courant’s analysis of post-stop behavior, along with responses to the most frequent issues that are raised whenever we dig into this data. Continue reading