A University of Vermont professor whose study of racial bias in car searches by Vermont police was criticized by law enforcement as methodologically flawed, has released a new study confirming her original findings.
Stephanie Seguino, a professor of economics at UVM, last year released the results of a study of car searches in 2015 — the first year police officers recorded the perceived race of drivers on police reports. Titled “Driving While Black or Brown in Vermont,” the study found that drivers identified on reports as black or Hispanic were searched far more frequently than drivers identified as white or Asian.
The Vermont Police Chiefs Association and the Vermont Sheriffs Association and others in law enforcement took issue with Seguino’s methods, primarily that she had failed to take into account other factors such as gender, age and time of day.
Seguino said she would do a follow-up study addressing those and other concerns. The results of the second study, “A Deeper Dive into Racial Disparities in Policing in Vermont,” were released in March.
Seguino’s new findings confirm her previous findings, which is that drivers perceived as black or Hispanic had their cars searched at a rate two to three times higher than drivers perceived as white or Asian.
For the second study Seguino also looked at Vermont State Police records of car searches resulting in the seizure of hard drugs.
Police reported 10 percent of their searches resulted in the seizure of hard drugs — opioids, heroin and cocaine. Of those searches resulting in the seizure of hard drugs, none of the drivers involved were perceived by police to be black or Hispanic, Seguino said.
Representatives of Vermont law enforcement continue to contend that Seguino’s data are problematic, and that the picture is more complicated than the one she is presenting.
The police reports of traffic stops and car searches that Sequino used in her research contain such information the officer’s reason for pulling the car over, whether the car was searched and why, and whether any contraband was found, and the race of the driver — as perceived by the officer.
Jennifer Morrison, Police Chief of the town of Shelburne and President of the Vermont Police Chiefs Association, said aspects of police reports are subjective. Officers in the same department may vary in their perception and reporting of drivers’ race and ethnicity, she said. Furthermore, she said, the data Seguino used doesn’t take into account exactly what prompted the officer’s decision to search the car — whether it was the car’s driver or a passenger.
Vermont police officers go through extensive training, Morrison said, and while bias is an issue that permeates society far beyond traffic stops and car searches, “We can’t lay it all on the police officer on the roadside.”
“I am willing to bet that in comparison to other major institutions,” Morrison said, “law enforcement have been the ones that have been leading the way.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: UVM study confirms racial bias in car searches.