Racial Profiling Data

Anaysis of Data for 2007
In 2007, the Police Department recorded a total of 6,747 citizen contacts or stops. The overwhelming majority of these contacts were with Caucasians. Caucasians were stopped a total of 5,463 times or 81% of the total stops. The second most prevalent stop was with Hispanic or Latinos, who were stopped for a total of 1,131 times or 16.8% of the total stops. Black or African-American citizens were stopped 119 times or 1.8% of the total stops. The Police Department had 16 contacts with Asians and 1 contact with Native Americans.

Arrests and Searches
In the total stops for Caucasians, 3.3% were searched and 2.4% were arrested. Hispanics that were stopped were searched 0.9% of the time, while 0.8% were arrested. Of the 85 Black/African-American citizens that were stopped, 0.01% were searched and 0.01% were arrested.

Summary
When looking at total citizen contacts, there does not appear to be any race over-represented in the data collected. When looking at arrest and searches by race, the percentages are close, the ranges for arrests went from a low of 0.8% to a high of 2.4%, and on searches from 0.9% to 2.3%.

The number of police contacts with Caucasian, Hispanic, African, Asian, Native American and other drivers and citizens, when compared to the numbers of city and local residents with the same ethnicity, demonstrated that no particular race was over-represented.

The Police Department held a community meeting for our Hispanic population that included speakers and material in both English and Spanish language.

Recommendations
The Bridgeport Police Department is committed to collecting accurate police contact data that will assure an on-going evaluation of the department’s practices. This will allow for the citizens of Bridgeport to benefit from professional and courteous service from their police department. In 2008, the Bridgeport Police department will:

    · Provide further racial sensitivity training to its police personnel 
    · Conduct training on the Texas Racial Profiling Law 
    · Conduct training on the Tier One collection of data with all police personnel
    · Provide for continual public education in regards to the Texas Racial profiling Law
    · Continue conducting community meetings to enhance the relationship between the officers and
      our minority citizens