CPD racial profiling report sees an increase in total stops
Officers have been writing more citations under new direction.
Published March 5, 2010
The total amount of traffic stops increased 34 percent in the Columbia Police Department's 2009 racial profiling report, CPD spokeswoman Jessie Haden said in an e-mail.
The annual racial profiling report was released in mid-February; CPD is required to give the report to the public. Haden said it is posted after the end of every calendar year, and Columbia's Information Technology department compiles the information for the report.
"Lt. (Ken) Hammond, as the records custodian, is responsible to compile the data," Haden said. "He gets the information from the IT department and forwards it to the Missouri attorney general's office."
The attorney general's Web site has archived reports from previous years, Haden said. Totals from 2008 are also posted on CPD's Web site with other documents describing racial profiling reports.
Haden said increases in stops for African Americans, Caucasians and overall stops are due to officers' increased activity since Chief Kenneth Burton came into office. In 2009, stops for Caucasian drivers were up 38 percent, and stops for African-American drivers were up 24 percent. Regarding gender, stops for male drivers were up 31 percent, and stops for female drivers were up 38 percent.
Haden said Burton expects a lot out of CPD officers, both with the traffic unit and patrol officers. The increase in the amount of stops is not surprising, she said.
"Regardless of why and when, they definitely have gone up quite a bit," Haden said. "I'm not surprised at all that our officers have become more active."
Part of the increase is due to Burton encouraging officers to write more citations instead of giving warnings, Haden said. CPD wants to stop major traffic violations from being repeated.
"The number of citations proportionally went up a lot," Haden said. "We're writing more tickets and fewer warnings, and we want people to know that. Word of mouth may have been before that you'll get a warning instead of ticket, and that's just not the case anymore."