New Report Shows Racial Disparities in Suburban Police Department Arrests in Northeast Los Angeles

Arrest and booking data from three police departments in Northeast Los Angeles County – Glendale Police Department, Pasadena Police Department, and South Pasadena Police Department revealed large disparities in arrests by race.

LOS ANGELES, CA – Today, In partnership with the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, Dr. Seva Rodnyansky and Dr. Jorgen Harris of Occidental College published Data Analysis of Policing and Human Relations in Los Angeles County Suburban Police Departments, a report that analyzes arrest and booking data from three suburban police departments in Northeast Los Angeles County – Glendale Police Department, Pasadena Police Department, and South Pasadena Police Department. The data referenced in this report were collected via Freedom of Information Act requests as part of a multi-year collaborative initiative with local activist groups: Coalition for an Anti-Racist Glendale, Care First South Pasadena, and Coalition for Increased Civilian Oversight of Pasadena Police.

The report’s significant findings include the following:

• Large disparities in arrests by race, with Black and Latino/a arrests rates much higher than those for Whites and Asians.

• Cash bail disparately impacts Black and Latino/a arrestees. They also are more likely to be awarded jail time for similar offenses committed by White and Asian arrestees.

• Arrests cluster spatially, especially around major commercial centers in all three cities, except for arrests for violent crimes, which cluster in areas with higher Black and Latino/a populations.

• Disparate arrest trends based on race/ethnicity primarily driven by misdemeanor offense arrests, including drug offenses reclassified by Proposition 47.

For decades, local police accountability efforts have been focused primarily on the big three metropolitan police departments in Los Angeles County – LA County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles Police Department, and Long Beach Police Department. Consequently, important information about small to mid-sized police departments, especially those in suburban cities, often has been overlooked. This report is a preliminary effort to remedy this omission by surveying the data collection landscape for suburban police departments, uncovering potential disparities in enforcement actions, and illustrating the need for parity.

The Commission’s 2020 seminal report on public safety, Redefining Policing with our Community, is the impetus for this current exploration of arrest and booking data from these three police departments. Recommendation 16 of the 2020 report calls for greater public accessibility of the kind of information detailed in the current study. That recommendation specifically refers to information collected in compliance with the California Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015.

RIPA explicitly prohibits racial and identity profiling by law enforcement and requires regular reporting to the Attorney General on all vehicle and pedestrian stops and citizen complaints alleging racial and identity profiling. RIPA aims to provide data, best practices, and recommendations for community advocates, organizations, law enforcement, and policymakers to advance equity in policing practices collectively. While RIPA applies to all police departments, small to mid-sized police departments often struggle to meet reporting standards because of limitations in data collection procedures, antiquated data systems, and lack of staff expertise. The analysis of data from the three police departments demonstrates the urgency of addressing these challenges.

Ella Hushagen, a Care First South Pasadena member shared, “…the city [of South Pasadena] was informed about the findings of this data. [However,] the city has yet to respond to community demands to reduce racial disparities in police arrests [or] questions about whether paying for the costly service of policing is the best use of public resources to address traffic violations and nonviolent incidents. This report demonstrates the importance of data in shaping policing, whether in large or small cities such as ours.”

Cities across the nation are responding to public outcry and heeding calls for increased police accountability and data transparency of law enforcement activities. Recently, New York City adopted the How Many Stops Act, which calls for critical transparency in the daily enforcement activities of the New York Police Department (NYPD). The new law fills existing equity gaps by requiring NYPD to report on all police stops and encounters, including where they happen, demographic information of the contacted person, the reason for the encounter, and whether the encounter led to any use of force or enforcement action. The federal monitor over NYPD reports that as many as 25% of current stops are unconstitutional, and roughly 97% of New Yorkers stopped identify as Black and Latino/a.

We encourage people to join the Commission in using this report and the corresponding data to advance equity in law enforcement agencies across Los Angeles County.

To review the full report, please click here. To learn more about the LA County Commission on Human Relations and sign up for our eBulletin click here.

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