"A cultural shift is required to end racism in policing" and other disparities based on individuals' appearances rather than their actions, the RIPA Board said in its 2024 report, which included data collected in 2023 on 4.7 million stops of motor vehicles and pedestrians conducted by the 539 law enforcement agencies in California .
"Young Californians who are driving, biking and walking and perceived to be Black or brown are regularly stopped, asked to consent to a search, handcuffed, sat on the curb, put in a police car, and questioned for information that is recorded on a field interview card before being released," said Andrea Guerrero , co-chair of the RIPA Board and executive director of Alliance San Diego, a civil rights group. "This is California's version of stop and frisk that causes immeasurable harm to the community and erodes trust in law enforcement from a young age."
In the meantime, the RIPA Board said, state and local lawmakers "should explore how limiting officer discretion in stops could reduce racial disparities." Several law enforcement agencies, including the California Highway Patrol , have placed restrictions on their officers' open-ended authority to decide whether a motorist or pedestrian is acting suspiciously and should be stopped and searched, the report said.
But the state's largest police organization, the Peace Officers Research Association of California , said the report lacked crucial information — including the racial composition of areas where stops occurred, the concentration of officers in those areas and whether officers knew the race of a driver they were stopping — and therefore had no basis to accuse police of racial or ethnic profiling. The group aggressively opposed the law establishing RIPA and has contended each year that the data is not actually evidence that racial profiling takes place.
"With elected leaders relying on this research to create laws and allocate resources, these flaws and analytical shortcomings risk leading to policies that undermine public trust and harm both law enforcement and the communities they serve," PORAC wrote in an unsigned critique published Thursday.
The Legislature has rejected many of the board's past recommendations, including its proposals to ban "pretext stops," in which officers pull drivers over for minor offenses like broken taillights in order to search for drugs or guns. The board's reports and other studies have found that the practice disproportionately affects minorities, but legislation to prohibit most such stops was defeated last year, with police unions and prosecutors leading the opposition.
One bill supported by the RIPA Board won legislative approval, the report noted: SB1020 by then-Sen. Steven Bradford , D- Gardena , prohibiting state-approved police firearms training programs from using shooting targets with obvious racial or ethnic features.
But the measure, opposed by law enforcement groups, was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom , who said its definition of a prohibited "ethnic shooting target" was "so broad that it could effectively ban targets with any realistic facial features, undermining efforts by law enforcement to train officers effectively."
The board's 18 members include appointees of Newsom, state legislative leaders and Attorney General Rob Bonta , as well as representatives of law enforcement agencies and the state Public Defender's Office. This is its eighth annual report, and all of them have found that police stops in California disproportionately affect racial minorities.
Black people make up about 5 percent of California's population but made up 12.1 percent of those stopped by police in 2023, the report said. Latinos and Latinas totaled 40 percent of the population and 43.1 percent of police stops; whites, 33.4 percent of the population, accounted for 30.1 percent of the stops; and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, 16.8 percent of the population and 11.3 percent of the stops; with Native American and multiracial groups accounting for the rest.
Regarding use of force — which includes physically seizing or handcuffing a person and using or threatening to use a weapon or a police dog — the report noted a nationwide study in 2021 that found Black youths under 16 accounted for 15 percent of the population but more than 50 percent of the targets of police force. Similar discrepancies exist in California , the RIPA Board said.
For youths perceived to be 18-24, officers used force on 18.2 percent of the Black people they stopped in 2023 and 6.3 percent of those who appeared to be white, the report said. For those who appeared to be 15-17, force was used on 41.2 percent of Black people and 9.5 percent of white people. For those 12-14, force was used on 45.4 percent of Black people and 19.2 percent of white people.
One apparent reason, the report said, is that "law enforcement officers consistently overestimate the age of Black youth relative to other youth," which "causes Black youth to be seen as less entitled to the presumption of innocence and the protections that come with childhood, and to instead be seen as dangerous."
Some of the same disparities were found in police treatment of young people who were perceived as transgender, and other members of the LGBT community.
LGBT youths age 15-17, for example, were subjected to force by police 31 percent of the times they were stopped, compared with 21 percent of other youths, the report said.
People 24 and younger who were perceived to be transgender were handcuffed in 17.6 percent of their police stops and searched in 19 percent, the report said. Cisgender youths, by contrast, were handcuffed in 9.8 percent of the stops and searched in 12.4 percent. And transgender youths were also much more likely than others to be stopped on suspicion of a crime and subjected to use of force.
The board said California lags behind many other states by requiring police to undergo training only once every five years on issues related to racial or other types of "profiling," though some local agencies conduct training more frequently.
"The Board recommends that the Legislature require all state and local law enforcement agencies to adopt policies prohibiting racial and identity profiling," the report said.
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