Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) was making over ten times as many traffic stops per capita than many similarly-sized American cities. Even though the MNPD claims that the stops were used as part of an enforcement tool to ensure public safety, local communities raised concerns that the practice disproportionately impacts black drivers. Analysis of the traffic stop data showed that the number of black drivers being stopped per year was more than the number of black driving-age residents in the city. According to the data, black drivers were stopped 44% more often when compared to white drivers per driving-age resident ( Chohlas-Wood et al., 2018).
Additionally, 68% of the traffic stops were done for non-moving violations and targeted people suspected to live in high-crime areas. Selective traffic stops in different locations partly contributed to racial disparities in MNPD enforcement mechanisms ( Chohlas-Wood et al., 2018). The non-moving violation stops are segregated by race and predominantly occur in black neighborhoods compared to white neighborhoods. Such non-moving violations include broken trail lights and expired registration tags. The researchers found no direct correlation between crime and traffic top data. Even though the MNPD claims that the traffic stops reduce higher incidences of crime and promote public safety, the study findings suggest that there is no immediate or long term impact of traffic stops on serious crime. The authors of the study found out that only 1.6% of the resulted in I custodial arrests. The arrests were not for criminal activities such as burglaries or robberies but license violations or drugs. Through the use of a multi-year and many shorter week-long time frames, the researchers observed that traffic stops do not appear to reduce more serious crime. The researchers further point out that investigatory stops were more effective in contraband recovery compared to non-moving violation stops. Therefore, the use of other enforcement mechanisms like investigatory stops could help achieve more arrest, thereby reducing crimes when adopted by MNPD. MNPD report findings show that the traffic stops had been rapidly declining from 450,000 stops in 2012 to 250,000 in 2017. The reasons for the stops include moving violations, which constituted 51% of all traffic stops. Moving violations include behaviors such as speeding, talking on a cell phone while driving, and reckless driving ( Chohlas-Wood et al., 2018). Other reasons for traffic stops were registration violations, equipment violations, and safety violations. The MPD report shows that the stop rate for black drivers has substantially increased compared to that of white drivers. The authors discuss that racial disparities may arise because of MPD deployment strategies that concentrate officers in black neighborhoods. Despite the MPD report signifying that moving violations led to more stops, the authors found out that racial disparities were more pronounced in non-moving violations. The non-moving violations stops are concentrated in places with high crime rates such as black neighborhoods. However, the policing strategy has only managed to create racial disparities instead of reducing crime rates in such areas. Therefore, a substantial reduction of non-moving violation stops would help in reducing the prevailing disparities and put Nashville at par with other cities. The findings support the concept of the broken window s theory. The theory states that when a problem in the community in the society such as disorder, crime, or violence goes unattended, it creates an environment that leads to more problems. The traffic stop activities have shifted from their primary focus of deterring crime and disorder. The stop activities are instead focused on the demographic and socioeconomic conditions of people living in poor and minority neighborhoods ( Fagan et al., 2010). As a result, the increase of stop search rates has only managed to create an environment that breeds more crime in neighborhoods that enhancing safety. The selective enforcement of traffic stops has reduced efficiency in producing arrests, thereby creating an environment where serious crimes such as homicides, aggravated assault, and burglaries. Therefore, relying on race to deter crime only leas to victimization and limits the effectiveness in producing arrests. Traditional measures of physical orders used by the police departments inhibit the effect of disorder in on neighborhood crime to be fully observed. Failure to attend to signs of unrest in the community affects people's attitudes towards an environment that leads to more problems. Therefore, the presence of disorderly public cues may act as a signal to potential offenders, thereby increase neighborhood crime rates. Therefore, to combat crime, the traffic stops should concentrate on solving the physical disorders that take place on public and shared areas rather than engaging in racial profiling of neighborhoods (Konkel, Ratkowski, & Tapp, 2019). Adopting community-oriented policing (COP) could be an appropriate strategy in solving crime. Crime, disorder, and socioeconomic predictors vary differently in neighborhoods. Therefore, looking at crime in neighborhoods than only at racial differences will help the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to understand patterns of criminal activities in such areas effectively. Crime in neighborhoods is partly influenced by residential instability and ethnic diversity.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Therefore, looking at the race will only manage to the victimization of particular racial groups in the neighborhoods. As a result, it becomes challenging to assess the extent to which neighborhood conditions influence policing of MPD traffic stops. Also, looking at crimes in the neighborhood rather than race will enable the MPD to ensure that each police stop meets high standards of fairness and constitutional policing (Konkel, Ratkowski, & Tapp, 2019) . Observing such standards will enable the MPD to build public trust in its traffic stop activities. All residents will view the policies to be inclusive and have strived to maintain high respect for individuals stopped. It will, therefore, become easy for the general public to trust the police and frequently report incidences of crime in their neighborhoods without any fear of victimization ( Fagan et al., 2010) . The MPD can involve neighborhoods in combating crime using community-oriented policing practices, which better allow identification of problem areas and behaviors.
References
Chohlas-Wood, A., Goel, S., Shoemaker, A., & Shroff, R. (2018). An analysis of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s traffic stop practices . Technical report, Stanford Computational Policy Lab.
Fagan, J., Geller, A., Davies, G., & West, V. (2010). Street stops and broken windows revisited. Race, ethnicity, and policing , 309-348.
Konkel, R. H., Ratkowski, D., & Tapp, S. N. (2019). The Effects of Physical, Social, and Housing Disorder on Neighborhood Crime: A Contemporary Test of Broken Windows Theory. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information , 8 (12), 583.
