NCSU, NCCU Examine Racial Profiling in N.C.

At the request of state law enforcement officials and with the support of a $470,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department, the researchers went out on N.C. highways equipped with stopwatches and radar guns to measure the speed of speeding vehicles.

The researchers will then compare that data to the races of individuals pulled over by police. The research began in summer 1999 and should be finished by summer 2001.

The tactics the researchers are using are similar to ones developed by John Lamberth, a psychology professor at Temple University.

Lamberth said the methods are accurate and give precise results. "We were interested in the percentage of blacks on a highway versus the percentage of blacks who were stopped by the police," he said. "What we were basically doing is labeling everyone who was speeding."

Matt Zingraff, a researcher in the study and associate dean for research at N.C. State's College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said researchers also conducted several focus groups with blacks and whites across the state and plan to schedule focus groups with N.C. Highway Patrol officers in the future.

"Our major focus is comparisons between the races," Zingraff said. "We don't believe that our findings will bring the debates on racial profiling to the end, we just provide the information for the discussion. I am sure some people can disagree with our conclusions without even knowing what the conclusions will be."

One such skeptic could be UNC political science Professor Isaac Unah.

Unah said the researchers' conclusions will depend on data they receive from police officers, which could skew the result.

But Zingraff said the research only aimed to provide information for a discussion about the extent of racial profiling, not put an end to it.

"We are not on either side, we are just trying to find out the answers," he said. "Race in our society is a very important issue, and low enforcement is a major institution. If there's a concern that our major institution is disproportionally targeting a certain segment of society, it needs to be examined."

And Zingraff said that one potential problem is a lack of information.

"We need to understand the process of decision-making in the minds of the officers," he said. "We need to know what goes through their minds when they decide to stop someone."

Zingraff cited an example in which a young black man in a focus group said neither he, his family nor his friends had any problems with police "But still I don't trust police," the man added.

Zingraff said these words illustrate the damage racial profiling can cause.

"These words illustrate what kind of damage it can do to the community," he said. "We need to trust the police. And if there is such an issue that the police is distrusted, we have to address that."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.