Illinois police agencies made more traffic stops in 2023 than they did the year before, says the state Department of Transportation. Police continue to stop Black and Latino drivers at disproportionate rates and that dozens of police agencies fail to report traffic stop data, as required by state law, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. “It’s really disappointing to see that after all the attention that has been paid to the disparity in traffic stops along racial lines, that we see not just the continuation of those racial disparities, but we see an increase in the number of stops,” said Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. There were 2.26 million stops in 2023 — a 12% increase from the 2.01 million stops in 2022 and the highest annual statewide total since 2019 — according to the 2023 Illinois Traffic Stop Study, published this week.
Some 18% of police agencies did not submit a full year of stop data or didn’t submit data at all, an improvement from the 21% who failed to comply with the law in 2022. Among the 997 police agencies, 158 didn’t submit traffic stop data. That list is largely composed of small downstate police agencies, but it also includes some in the Chicago metro area like those in Dixmoor, North Chicago and Round Lake Heights. North Chicago also failed to report its traffic stop data for 2021 and 2022. “It’s been a state law requirement to report these traffic stops and pedestrian stops since 2004. So the infrastructure is there, the precedent is there,” said Loren Jones of Impact for Equity, a Chicago region public interest law and policy center. “I don’t believe there’s any excuse for departments not to be complying with reporting on the racial demographics.” Racial disparities in traffic stops remain prominent among most police agencies. Black drivers were stopped at higher rates than white drivers in 95% of agencies that reported at least 50 traffic stops in 2023. The stop rate for Black drivers was at least twice the rate for white drivers in 69% of those agencies. Latino drivers were stopped at higher rates than white drivers in 81% of agencies reporting at least 50 traffic stops last year. Among drivers stopped by police in 2023, Black drivers had a 36% higher chance than white drivers of being stopped two or three times.