State report shows Black and Hispanic drivers are disproportionately pulled over by law enforcement in Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A new state report shows Black and Hispanic drivers are still more likely to be stopped on Virginia’s roads than their white counterparts.

The Department of Criminal Justice Services found that Black and Hispanic drivers accounted for 40% of the state’s traffic stops in 2023, despite making up less than 30% of Virginia’s driving-age population.

“The bias exists,” explained Rob Poggenklass, Executive Director of Justice Forward Virginia.

In 2023, Black drivers made up 29.4% of the state’s traffic stops despite making up only 19.4% of the state’s driving-age population.

Hispanic drivers accounted for 9.2% of the driving-age population, but accounted for 10.2% of all traffic stops.

By comparison, white drivers make up 63.7% of the driving-age population, but only accounted for 57.4% of traffic stops.

“Black people are not any more likely to commit crimes than white people, but yet they are searched much more often than white people are searched,” said Poggenklass. “They are arrested more than white people are arrested. They are stopped more than white people are stopped.”

The report adds that although the data does show a disparity, “It does not allow us to determine the extent to which these disparities may or may not be due to bias-based profiling.”

The report cites several factors that may play a role in the data including “differences in locations where police focus their patrol activities,” and “differences in driving patterns among individuals and across racial/ethnic groups.”

However, Poggenklass says there is bias, and says one of the ways to fix that is by ending the “War on Drugs.”

“We would just like to eliminate those types of searches so that law enforcement don’t have the incentive to pull people over for minor discrepancies and try and search them,” Poggenklass told 8News.

The report also found that Black and Hispanic drivers are more likely to be searched or arrested during a traffic stop.

To get a response to the report, 8News reached out to the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, who told us they couldn’t do an interview today. In addition, we reached out to the Virginia Sheriff’s Association via phone and email and requested an interview, but we never heard back.

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