Exploratory Data Analysis of Officer Traffic Stops
On a first glance at the data, we can see that this data covers traffic stops by police officers in Charlotte, North Carolina over the year 2016. Let’s explore first the race, gender and years of service of officers.
| Officer Race | Officer Gender | Count |
|---|---|---|
| White | Male | 45,939 |
| Black/African American | Male | 11,708 |
| White | Female | 4,861 |
| Asian / Pacific Islander | Male | 3,731 |
| Hispanic/Latino | Male | 2,198 |
| Black/African American | Female | 606 |
| Not Specified | Male | 338 |
| Hispanic/Latino | Female | 321 |
| American Indian/Alaska Native | Male | 221 |
| Not Specified | Female | 90 |
| Native Hawaiian/Oth Pac Island | Male | 62 |
We omit the NAs in the data, because we can see that there are 261 NAs in the data. Also, there are unspecified data for officer races of 460 officers.
| Officer Race | Gender | Average Years of Service |
|---|---|---|
| Asian / Pacific Islander | Male | 12 |
| White | Male | 12 |
| Black/African American | Male | 11 |
| American Indian/Alaska Native | Male | 9 |
| White | Female | 9 |
| Black/African American | Female | 8 |
| Hispanic/Latino | Male | 7 |
| Native Hawaiian/Oth Pac Island | Male | 7 |
| Hispanic/Latino | Female | 4 |
| CMPD Division | Count |
|---|---|
| South Division | 8,699 |
| Providence Division | 7,634 |
| North Division | 6,782 |
| Westover Division | 6,642 |
| Hickory Grove Division | 6,383 |
| Eastway Division | 5,833 |
| University City Division | 5,302 |
| Steele Creek Division | 4,788 |
| Independence Division | 4,613 |
| Metro Division | 3,652 |
| Central Division | 3,148 |
| Freedom Division | 3,130 |
| North Tryon Division | 3,041 |
We observe that there is a high number of NAs in the CMPD Division data of officers, which is 9586. We also observe that the highest number of officers were from South Division, Providence Division, North Division, Westover Division and Hickory Grove Division respectively in decreasing numbers.
Let us know visualize the officer data that we have previously summarized.
We observe that the highest number of stops were being conducted by officers of white race from the “South Division”, followed by Providence Division and Hickory Grove Division. A lot of stops were also being conducted by black/African American officers.
Let us now visualize the number of stops by months of 2016.
We observe that the maximum number of stops occurred for vehicle regulatory and speeding reasons.
Now, let us investigate the result of the stops as well as the race/ethnicity and age of the driver.
We observe that the majority of drivers which were stopped in 2016 were Non-Hispanic Black and Non-Hispanic White. We also observe that the result of the stop was a verbal warning followed by citation issued. This remained the same for all racial and ethnic groups of people. Let us further dive into the age distribution of these drivers, and whether a search was conducted by the officers.
| Driver Race and Ethnicity | Search Conducted | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Hispanic Black | No | 40,365 |
| Non-Hispanic White | No | 25,882 |
| Non-Hispanic Black | Yes | 2,467 |
| Non-Hispanic White | Yes | 464 |
We observe that a search was not conducted for 94.24% of Non-Hispanic Black drivers, and for 98.24% of Non-Hispanic White drivers, which is a significant percentage of the drivers. We also notice a search was conducted for 5.76% of Non-Hispanic Black drivers, which is significantly higher than 98.24% of Non-Hispanic White drivers.
Let us now explore the reasons of stops which occurred for drivers of Non-Hispanic White and Non-Hispanic Black race and ethnicity. Let us also explore the officers which conducted these investigations.
Thus, we observe that the major reasons for stopping for Non-Hispanic White and Non-Hispanic Black drivers were also vehicle regulatory and speeding. Thus, there is no major outlier in this data.