Report finds Pa. state police stops are conducted with no racial or ethnic disparities

Last year, Pennsylvania State Police pulled over drivers of various races and ethnicities at similar rates, according to a department report released Wednesday.

Researchers used multiple analytical techniques and were unable to find any substantive racial or ethnic disparities in traffic stops made by the state police in 2023, according to Dr. Robin Engel, Senior Research Scientist at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University.

"When we first started working with his agency, the disparities ... they were considered substantively moderate, sometimes substantively large differences," she said. "Here we are seeing no differences or minor differences."

Engel's research team started developing a collection system for state police in 1999, issuing their first report in 2002. Engel said the more than 20-year change in figures comes from a more enhanced data collection system.

"Also there have been changes in policies, training, oversight, accountability," she said. "Truly a spotlight has been placed on law enforcement for quite some time now, and there's been, I think, appropriate response and in this case what we are seeing is a result of that."

State police conducted 449,047 traffic stops in the commonwealth in 2023, which increased from the 441,329 stops conducted in 2022. Nearly 70% happened on weekdays, 67% occurred in the daytime, and 55% occurred on a state highway.

More than 90% of traffic stops concluded within 15 minutes of the initial stop, Engel said. More than 80% of the stops involved registered Pennsylvania vehicles.

"The largest number of stops (40%) were made for speeding," she said, adding that most drivers are $21.5 mph over the posted speed limit when stopped by police.

The data collected by Engel's team is critical for keeping the roadways safe, according to Col. Christopher Paris, Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police.

"The fact that we're conducting more traffic stops this year over last year I take as a barometer that our troopers are out there, and they're motivated to do the job, and they are doing the job legally, within policy, and within case law," he said.

With nearly half a million car stops and an additional million calls for service that state police handled in 2023, Paris said the department received a complaint on average once every 24,000 encounters and 19 bias-based complaints. In 2022, it was once every 27,000 interactions.

Researchers found that 98% of residents' encounters with state police display civil behavior when stopped. The average age of drivers stopped by state police is 39, with 67% male and 81% residents.

Engel said that 72% of motorists stopped by state police in 2023 were white. More than 15% were Black and 9% Hispanic.

"The trooper does not ask the motorist what race or ethnicity they are," she said. "Rather this is based on his or her perceptions of the motorist, and that is by design. Because if we are concerned about decision making by a trooper based on race or ethnicity, then we need to know what their perception is of that motorist."

This is the third consecutive year state police have released a traffic stop patterns report to the public.

Data is gathered through two sample groups. State police troopers fill out a form after each traffic stop noting questions that include gender, race and cause of stop. Those forms are then compared with dispatcher data. According to the report, less than 0.005% had a missing value on any of the data field collected.

"We're always concerned about doing things the best possible and most fastidious way we can, but my belief is the overwhelming, vast statistically near insignificant amount of error rates says our people are doing it correctly," Paris said.

Enforcement numbers

More than 56.1% of the stops made by the Pennsylvania State Police in 2023 resulted in a warning, according to Engel. 58.7% of stops ended in a driver recieving a citation and 3.3% of stops in arrests.

"Both arrests and discretionary searches are statistically rare events in traffic stops for the Pennsylvania State Police," she said.

Engel added that the sum of these percentages exceeds 100% because motorists can receive more than one enforcement outcome during a single stop with state police.

In August 2023, researchers began gathering information about when troopers run queries about criminal history during a traffic stop. From Aug. 17 to Dec. 31, troopers queried criminal history 5.5% of the time. Engels said 56.5 % of those queries resulted in detection of a criminal history.

Discretionary searches are slightly more likely for Black drivers than white and Hispanic drivers, according to the report. Once criminal histories are accounted for, Black drivers are 1.46 times more likely to be subject to a discretionary search.

State police conducted a total of 19,042 searches during 2023. Of these, 6,531 resulted in the seizure of contraband, which is an overall seizure rate of 34.3%. The most common types of contraband seized department-wide include drugs at 48.2% and drug paraphernalia at 30.1%.

Researchers recommended that state police continue to enhance traffic stop data collection system and consider additional opportunities for accountability and oversight for impartial treatment.

"Our north star that we are trying to get to is 0, but that is something when you are doing multi-variance statistical analysis that is difficult to achieve," Paris said. "As the commissioner, I'm pleased with the work of our people. ... We're going to strive to do the job regardless of class, color, creed or condition."

See the Pennsylvania State Police Traffic Stop Study at pa.gov/en/agencies/psp/resources/psp-data .

Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on X at @DAMattToth .

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Report finds Pa. state police stops are conducted with no racial or ethnic disparities