While traffic courts in the region may be less crowded than they were several years ago, the makeup of the drivers looks largely the same.

During a traffic court session in Ferguson in mid-July, the line stretched out the door. Although the city is two-thirds black, almost everyone appearing before the judge that day was black. African-Americans also accounted for the overwhelming majority of drivers appearing in traffic courts recently in the nearby towns of Florissant and St. Ann — both of which have predominantly white populations.

In Ferguson, the dreary routine of traffic court played out over two and a half hours — 90 minutes longer than was scheduled. People filed through a metal detector and had to store their cellphones in manila envelopes to take them into the courtroom.

As a black man driving a 2000 Lexus LS 400 with tinted windows, De’Shaun Bunch said he was a prime target. He said he had been pulled over about eight times in different municipalities in St. Louis County over the course of two years and was in court in Ferguson recently for tickets he had received for speeding and driving without insurance.

“I’m a black man and I’m driving a nice car,” he said. “It’s the same. They were doing it before, they’re still doing it now. It ain’t changed since Mike Brown died.”

[What has changed and what hasn’t in Ferguson, five years later.]

Mr. Bunch, who works in a shipping and receiving warehouse, said he had skipped previous court dates. He finally decided to show up after getting stopped about a month earlier. There had been a warrant for his arrest because of the delinquent tickets. In the past, he very likely would have been thrown in jail. But Mr. Bunch said the officer simply took him to a nearby police station, booked and released him, and told him to go to court.