A report compiled and recently published by the California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Council (RIPA) addressed the racial profiling of drivers and pedestrians by police in the state of California in the year 2022. According to the description, “the Report analyzes stop data reported on more than 4.5 million stops by 535 California law enforcement agencies from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022”.

According to the data presented, black people accounted for almost 13% of traffic stops in the state, a percentage significantly higher than their share of the population, which is 5%.

“The report includes what officers perceived to be the race, ethnicity, gender and disability status of people they stop so that the state can better identify and analyze bias in policing”. The key revelation is the notable disparities in police approaches, indicating that profiling is a widespread pattern across the state, according to the AssociatedPress.

The council’s work informs agencies, the state police training board, and state legislators as they change policies and seek to decrease racial disparities and bias in policing.

Police reported that Hispanics or Latinos accounted for nearly 43 percent of traffic stops in 2022 and that Whites accounted for more than 32 percent. 2021 census estimates say Black or African Americans made up just 5.4% of California's population of about 39 million, while whites made up about 35.8%. Hispanics or Latinos made up about 32 percent of the state's population that year. The advisory board used population figures from 2021 because they were the most recent data available at the time of their analysis."

Andrea Guerrero, co-chair of the board and executive director of Alliance San Diego, emphasized in a statement, according to the Associated Press, that the scale of the data collected confirms the widespread existence of racial profiling, and it is now imperative to address this problem by engaging all stakeholders to change policies and practices that enable it.