In an effort to comply with The Texas Racial Profiling Law, the Arlington Police
Department commissioned the analysis of its 2017 motor vehicle contact data. Thus, two
different types of data analyses were performed. The first of these involved a careful evaluation
of the 2017 motor vehicle-related data. This particular analysis measured, as required by the
law, the number and percentage of Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native
Americans, Middle Easterners and individuals belonging to the “other” category, that came in
contact with the police in the course of a motor vehicle related contact, and were either issued a
citation or arrested. Further, the analysis included information relevant to the number and
percentage of searches (table 1) while indicating the type of search performed (i.e., consensual or
probable cause). Also, the data analysis included the number and percentage of individuals who,
after they came in contact with the police for a motor vehicle-related reason, were arrested.
The additional data analysis performed was based on a comparison of the 2017 motor
vehicle contact data with a specific baseline. When reviewing this particular analysis, it should
be noted that there is disagreement, in the literature, regarding the appropriate baseline to be used
when analyzing motor vehicle-related contact information. Of the baseline measures available,
the Arlington Police Department opted to adopt, as a baseline measure, the Fair Roads Standard.
This particular baseline is based on data obtained through the U.S. Census Bureau (2010)
relevant to the number of households that have access to vehicles while controlling for the race
and ethnicity of the heads of households.
It is clear that census data presents challenges to any effort made at establishing a fair and
accurate racial profiling analysis. That is, census data contains information on all residents of a
particular community, regardless of the fact they may or may not be among the driving
population. Further, census data, when used as a baseline of comparison, presents the challenge
that it captures information related to city residents only. Thus, excluding individuals who may
have come in contact with the Arlington Police Department in 2017 but live outside city limits.
In some cases, the percentage of the population that comes in contact with the police but lives
outside city limits represents a substantial volume of all motor vehicle-related contacts made in a
given year.
Since 2002, several civil rights groups in Texas expressed their desire and made
recommendations to the effect that all police departments should rely, in their data analysis, on
the Fair Roads Standard. This source contains census data specific to the number of
“households” that have access to vehicles. Thus, proposing to compare “households” (which
may have multiple residents and only a few vehicles) with “contacts” (an individual-based
count). This, in essence, constitutes a comparison that may result in ecological fallacy. Despite
this, the Arlington Police Department made a decision that it would use this form of comparison
(i.e., census data relevant to households with vehicles) in an attempt to demonstrate its “good
will” and “transparency” before the community. Thus, the Fair Roads Standard data obtained and
used in this study is specifically relevant to the Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW) Metroplex.