Nashville's strategy of more traffic stops to reduce crime hasn't worked, new Policing Project study says The report from the Policing Project found racial disparities in traffic stops in Nashville but said it is not 'necessarily evidence of discrimination.'

Joey Garrison | The Tennessean

Increasing traffic stops has not successfully reduced crime in Nashville, according to a highly anticipated new study that explored racial bias in Metro's policing practices.

The key finding, outlined in a report released Monday by the Policing Project, undercuts what has for years been one of the core yet controversial strategies of the Metro Nashville Police Department: making large numbers of traffic stops in high-crime areas to reduce violence.

The Metro-commissioned study found that Nashville police conducted about 250,000 traffic stops in 2017 — about 458 stops for every 1,000 driving-age residents — more than twice the the per-capita rates of comparable cities like Raleigh, N.C., and Charlotte, N.C., and more than five times that of Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio.

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But researchers say that the traffic stops appear to have no impact, neither in the long-term nor short-term, on crime reduction.

The crime rate has remained flat since 2012, when the number of traffic stops peaked at 450,000 and started dropping. The study also found no relationship on a weekly basis between crime and the number of traffic stops.

"In some weeks, officers made an above average number of stops — and crime indeed went down," the Policing Project study reads. "But sometimes crime went down without any change in the number of stops. And sometimes crime would go up despite the stops."

Traffic stops don't reduce crime, researchers found. 'It's really quite stark.'

Leaders of the Policing Project released the findings to the Metro Council's Public Safety Committee on Monday afternoon.

"There was absolutely no relationship," Barry Friedman, director of the Policing Project and a former professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, told the council, referring to traffic stops and crime in Nashville. "It's really quite stark."

The Policing Project, part of the New York University School of Law, has conducted similar reports for other cities. Former Mayor Megan Barry's administration tapped the group to study Nashville after a 2017 report from the nonprofit Gideon's Army indicated racial disparities in traffic stops.

More recently, Nashville Mayor David Briley, Barry's successor, has pointed to the study as a key part of the city's response to the July police shooting death of Daniel Hambrick, a 25-year-old African-American man who was shot and killed during a foot chase in North Nashville.

Police Officer Andrew Delke, who is white, was charged with homicide for Hambrick's death. A preliminary hearing is set for January.

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Nashville's driving age population is 58 percent white, 27 percent black, 9 percent Hispanic and 6 percent other.

The Policing Project's study found that black drivers in Nashville are stopped at a 44 percent higher rate than white drivers, even though the racial gap has narrowed in recent years. This validates the work of Gideon's Army, which nonetheless had its methodology questioned last year by Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson.

In 2017, Nashville police made about 433 stops for every 1,000 white drivers, according to the study, compared to 623 stops for every 1,000 black drivers.

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The disparities are even higher for non-moving violation stops — things such as broken tail lights, broken headlights, and expired tags — than for moving violations. Last year, black drivers in Nashville were 68 percent more likely to be stopped for a non-moving violations than white drivers.

But only 21 out of every 1,000 non-moving violation stops, just over 2 percent, resulted in an arrest or recovery of drugs or contraband, according to the Policing Project study.

"A substantial portion, but certainly not all of, this disparity stems from the fact that MNPD officers spend more of their time in high-crime neighborhoods — and make more stops in these neighborhoods as well," the study says.

"Yet, non-moving violation stops do not appear to have a discernible effect on either long-term or short-term crime rates. And they result in a relatively small number of arrests."

Briley spokesman Thomas Mulgrew said by email Monday that the mayor believes the report was important to complete and validates the police department's decision to begin reducing non-moving violation stops.

Mulgrew said Briley will be working with Anderson to "institute this reduction in non-moving violation stops across the board, and is committed to ensuring that resources are available to make the transition successful."



"As the mayor has said previously, Nashville is moving towards a neighborhood policing model, which is already showing promise in two pilots the police department has underway," Mulgrew said.

Black council members say report shows what was already known

Appearing before the council committee, Friedman said Nashville police have argued officers "go where the crime is" and don't base traffic stops on demographics.

But when the study isolated traffic stops within the same neighborhood, it still found that black drivers are stopped at a 37 percent higher rate than white drivers.

The Policing Project collaborated with the Stanford Computational Policy Lab to review the traffic stop data while also talking with dozens of Nashville residents about their experience with the police.

The work comes as Nashvillians voted this month to create a new community oversight board to review the actions of police. The council is set to soon take nominations for members who will form the inaugural 11-member board.

Multiple black council members expressed frustration that the Policing Project's study simply reiterated many of the same findings of the Gideon's Army report.

"For years, people in the African-American community have been saying, 'Hey, we have an issue over here,'" said Councilman Scott Davis, chairman of the council's minority caucus. He said that no one has acknowledged the problem until a group of white researchers now says there's one.

"We know there's a fire," he said. "We don't need five other agencies telling us there's a fire when we see the fire is going."

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Traffic stops of 'great concern' for minorities; white people unaware

Over the course of several trips to Nashville, Policing Project researchers said it became clear that traffic stops were of "great concern," particularly within minority communities.

Meanwhile, many in the white community were largely unaware of the issue.

"As one prominent Nashvillian said quite emphatically, he had been 'ignorant' and was 'appalled,'" the study reads.

To counter the feeling of mistrust about police in communities of color, the department has taken steps to improve outreach, particularly in the James A. Cayce Homes public housing community where foot patrols and other work have helped reduce crime there.

The department also has been praised for how it has interacted with demonstrators urging greater police accountability. In 2014, officers famously handed out hot chocolate demonstrators arrived at police headquarters.

Police chief vows to 'rededicate' department to other approaches

Anderson, in a statement on the new report, said the police department can't turn a "blind-eye" to all non-moving traffic violations.

But he vowed that the department will "refocus and rededicate ourselves to strengthening community partnerships and engaging neighborhood residents in public safety initiatives that do not make vehicle stops a priority, unless a particular neighborhood is plagued by moving traffic violators and is in need of enforcement"

He didn't seem to say whether the department would work proactively to reduce traffic stops.

"We all realize that challenges are ahead of us as we work to ensure the safety of a growing and changing Nashville," he said. "This police department is committed to meeting those challenges in full partnership with the diverse communities we serve."

Anderson said the department has always recognized that more black drivers are stopped respective to their populations. But he said the department deploys its resources based on need regardless of demographics.

Nevertheless, Anderson said he "appreciate(s)" the report's finding that vehicle stops for non-moving equipment violations has not appeared to impact crime trends.

"Just as Nashville continues to evolve, so must our police department’s strategies and partnership efforts to best serve all of our communities," Anderson said.

Not necessarily racial bias or discrimination, report says

The report stops short of concluding that the higher rates of traffic stops for African-Americans is evidence of racial bias or discrimination.

It says racial disparities in policing may reflect a "variety of factors," including where officers are deployed, the crimes they are instructed to prioritize as well as "potential differences in rates of offending among different demographic groups."

For instance, the report noted that it is important to recognize other causes for the disparities, particularly with non-moving violations and as leaders look for solutions.

Lower-income residents may driver older cars or lack the resources to pay for needed repairs. "If lower-income residents tend to be disproportionately black, this could explain at least some of the remaining disparity," the report found.

Increasing traffic stops in high-crime areas was a staple of former Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas' policing approach. It has continued under the leadership of Anderson, who has led the department since 2010 — although the number of stops has dialed back since 2012.

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The Policing Project report concludes that if the police department's primary concern is crime reduction, it could direct resources to "more productive strategies" that strengthen its relationship with the community.

The Policing Project's recommendations for the Metro Nashville Police Department include:

reduce the number of traffic stops

acknowledge black residents have been disproportionately affected by MNPD’s stop practices

monitor racial disparities on an ongoing basis

redeploy officer resources toward more effective crime-fighting tools

consider adopting a Neighborhood Policing strategy

post its department policies online

conduct a review of certain key policies such as use of force

conduct a review of training around use of force, traffic stops, and procedural justice

adopt a body cameras.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236, jgarrison@tennessean.com and on Twitter @joeygarrison.