2.16 Review activity: Racial disparities in police stops

In roughly a one year period, beginning in October of 2016, the Minneapolis Police Department recorded 50,950 traffic stops in their public database. In this activity, we will use these data to analyze whether Black drivers were more likely than others in the population to be targeted by police for traffic stops.

On Halloween (October 31) 2017, the Minneapolis Police Department made 105 traffic stops. Of those, 39 of the drivers were Black. At that time Minneapolis’ population was 18.6% black.

In this activity, you will be exploring the following research question:

Does the percentage of black drivers being stopped provide evidence of possible racial disparities?

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2.16: Unit 2 review: Racial disparities in police stops