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The most common reason for contact with the police is being a driver in a traffic stop. In 2008, an estimated 44% of face-to-face contacts that U.S. residents had with police occurred for this reason. About half of all traffic stops that year resulted in a traffic ticket. Approximately 5% of all stopped drivers were searched by police during a traffic stop.
These findings are based on the Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS), a BJS survey that interviews U.S. residents about their contacts with police during the previous 12 months. Persons who reported more than one instance of face-to-face contact during the year are asked to describe the most recent occurrence. The PPCS has been conducted about every three years since 1999.
Summary findings
- An estimated 17.7 million persons age 16 or older indicated that their most recent contact with the police in 2008 was as a driver pulled over in a traffic stop. These drivers represented 8.4% of the nation’s 209 million drivers.
- A greater percentage of male drivers (9.9%) than female drivers (7.0%) were stopped by police during 2008. White (8.4%), black (8.8%), and Hispanic (9.1%) drivers were stopped by police at similar rates in 2008.
- Stopped drivers reported speeding as the most common reason for being pulled over in 2008.
- Approximately 85% of drivers pulled over by police in 2008 felt they had been stopped for a legitimate reason. In 2008, about 74% of black drivers believed police had a legitimate reason for stopping them compared to 86% of white and 82% of Hispanic drivers.
- In 2008 about 5% of traffic stops led to a search of the driver, the vehicle, or both. Police were more likely to search male drivers (7.4%) than female drivers (1.6%).
- Black drivers (12.3%) were about three times as likely as white drivers (3.9%) and about two times as likely as Hispanic drivers (5.8%) to be searched during a traffic stop in 2008.
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Contacts between Police and the Public, 2008
Presents findings from a nationally representative survey of nearly 60,000 residents age 16 or older about their contact with police during the 12 months prior to the interview. |
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Press Release | PDF (932K) | ASCII file (48K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 51K) | Codebooks and Datasets
Part of the Contacts between Police and the Public Series
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Contacts between Police and the Public, 2005
Presents data over a 12-month period on the nature and characteristics of face-to-face contacts between residents of the U.S. and the police. The report also provides demographic and other characteristics of residents involved in traffic stops and use of force incidents. |
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Press Release | PDF (305K) | ASCII file (32K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 21K) | To order paper version
Part of the Contacts between Police and the Public Series
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Citizen Complaints about Police Use of Force
Presents data on citizen complaints about police use of force received by large, general purpose State and local law enforcement agencies as well as on complaint dispositions. |
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Press Release | PDF (337K) | ASCII file (34K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 60K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version
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Characteristics of Drivers Stopped by Police, 2002
Provides data on the nature and characteristics of traffic stops, as collected in the 2002 Police-Public Contact Survey, a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. |
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PDF (337K) | ASCII file (34K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 60K) | To order paper version
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Local Police Departments, 2003
Presents data collected from a representative sample of local police department nationwide on a variety of agency characteristics based on the 2003 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey. |
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PDF (844K) | ASCII file (34K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 60K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version
Part of the Local Police Departments Series
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Traffic Stop Data Collection Policies for State Police, 2004
Presents findings from the 2004 Survey of State Police Agencies on policies and procedures for collecting race and ethnicity data regarding motorists involved in traffic stops. |
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PDF (544K) | ASCII file (9K) | ZIP Format (Spreadsheet 3K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version
Part of the Traffic Stop Data Collection Policies for State Police Series
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Contacts between Police and Public: Findings from the 2002 National Survey
Presents data on the nature and characteristics of contacts between residents of the U.S. and the police over a 12-month period. |
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PDF (886K) | ASCII file (62K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 25K) | To order paper version
Part of the Contacts between Police and the Public Series
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Local Police Departments, 2000
Presents data collected from a representative sample of the nearly 13,000 general-purpose local police departments nationwide. |
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PDF (591K) | ASCII file (68K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 57K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version
Part of the Local Police Departments Series
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Police Departments in Large Cities, 1990-2000
Describes trends from 1990 to 2000 among local police departments serving U.S. cities with 250,000 or more residents. |
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Press Release | PDF (772K) | ASCII file (30K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 75K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version
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Characteristics of Drivers Stopped by Police, 1999
Provides data on the nature and characteristics of traffic stops, as collected in the 1999 Police-Public Contact Survey. |
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PDF (198K) | ASCII file (48K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 145K) | Codebooks and Datasets
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Average base starting salary for entry-level officers in local police departments, 2000 and 2003
Figure 7 from Local Police Departments, 2003 |
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Download CSV file (Data Table 1 KB)
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Local Police Departments, 2003 Full-time employment by local police departments, 1987-2003
Local Police Departments, 2003 Full-time employment by local police departments, 1987-2003 |
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Spreadsheet (1K)
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Female and minority local police officers, 1987 and 2003
Figure 3 from Local Police Departments, 2003 |
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Download CSV file (Data Table 1 KB)
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Special public safety functions of local police departments, by size of population served, 2003
Table 36 from Local Police Departments, 2003 |
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Data Table (2 KB)
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