As a measure against racial profiling, many states or communities mandate that law enforcement agencies collect data on traffic stops and release these data to the public. If not examined properly, these data have the potential to be misinterpreted by the media or community groups, needlessly damaging the public image of your agency, undermining the legitimacy of your agency with the public, and lowering officer morale. This webinar addresses four major problems with the way government agencies, activist groups, and the media mistreat traffic stop data in biased ways.

This course will cover the following material:

Benchmark Bias

• Census benchmark
• Observational benchmarks
• Veil of Darkness’ method benchmark
• Crash driver benchmark

Statistical Analysis Bias

• Odd-ratio index
• Small number biases

Aggregation Bias

• Disaggregation exercise
• Aggregation bias

Data Collection Bias

• Race categorizations
• Race measurement errors