Racial profiling of motorists by police is getting worse in Illinois.
WBEZ and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity announced yesterday they are ready to present findings from an analysis of traffic stops conducted in Illinois over the past 20 years. They analyzed 42.5 million records of traffic stop data from more than 1,000 jurisdictions across Illinois.
Among their findings is that traffic stops involving Black drivers topped 30% of all traffic stops in Illinois in the last two years despite making up less than 15% of the population. Twenty years ago, Black drivers accounted for 17.5% of traffic stops in Illinois.
In Chicago, Black motorists were more than four times as likely to be stopped by police in 2022 than white motorists
The law authorizing the gathering of detailed data, called the Traffic Stop Statistical Study Act was sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama when he was a member of the General Assembly in 2003.
