Racism in traffic stops

And you thought we lived in this fantasy world where racism has been mostly eradicated in the 21st century.

Black, Latino drivers fare worse in traffic stops

Black, Hispanic and white drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police, but blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched and arrested, a federal study found.

Police were much more likely to threaten or use force against blacks and Hispanics than against whites in any encounter, whether at a traffic stop or elsewhere, according to the Justice Department.

The study, released Sunday by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, covered police contacts with the public during 2005 and was based on interviews by the Census Bureau with nearly 64,000 people age 16 or over.

“The numbers are very consistent” with those found in a similar study of police-public contacts in 2002, bureau statistician Matthew R. Durose, the report’s co-author, said in an interview. “There’s some stability in the findings over these three years.”