Data shows a large increase in traffic stops last year by Illinois police

(The Center Square) – Illinois police departments had a busy year in 2023, with an increase in traffic stops over the year before.

In Illinois Department of Transportation data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, there was a 12% increase in traffic stops last year from 2022.

“Police in Illinois conducted another 200,000 additional stops in 2023 compared with 2022, and to put that in a finer form, it means there are 500 additional stops happening every single day,” said Ed Yohnka, ACLU of Illinois director of Communications.

Yohnka adds that the data showed Black and Latino drivers were stopped at higher rates than white drivers in almost all areas of the state.

In Kankakee, police stopped Black drivers at a rate 5.5 times higher than white drivers; Peoria police stopped Black drivers 5.4 times more often than white drivers and Latino motorists were nearly 2 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers; and in Springfield, Black motorists were 5.7 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers.

New this year, IDOT analyzed data of individual drivers who were stopped multiple times in 2023, finding that Black drivers were about three times more likely to be stopped a total of two to 10 times, and 9 times more likely to be stopped more than 10 times compared to white drivers who were stopped.

“With 20 years of data reflecting ongoing racial and ethnic disparities in traffic stops, localities in Illinois can no longer ignore this problem. Police departments’ refusal to remedy these unjustified disparities amounts to intentional discrimination,” said Alexandra Block, director of the Criminal Legal System and Policing Project at the ACLU of Illinois. “This reality should cause public officials at the state and local level to convene a public discussion about how to fix the persistent biases in traffic stops.”

The ACLU reports the numbers are based on data that every law enforcement agency in the state is supposed to report annually, although about 20% of police agencies failed to submit the required data for 2023.