Name: Theodore Bussell
Title: Gendered Police Stops in the City of Berkeley
Subtitle: A dashboard for PHW251B final project
Data source: Berkeley Police Department (BPD) Stop Data, Oct 2020-Jan 2023
Background: This project uses a publicly available dataset containing stop data information by BPD, pursuant to the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015. Data is from October 1st, 2020 to January 18, 2023. The study population for this project are individuals who were stopped by BPD officers during the aforementioned time period. This dashboard aims to highlight the rates at which police presence is called for trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals and to visualize the average amount of time each of these interactions takes. Figure 1 (below) describes the relative rate at which police were explicitly called to interact with idividuals of each gender category. Figure 2 (right) provides an interactive chart of aggregated on-scene time of BPD based on perceived gender. By highlighting these disparities in over-policing, I hope that the Berkeley community will be more able to advocate for regulations that protect their TNGC neighbors.
Results: Looking at these data, TGNC individuals have the police called to their presence at significantly higher rates than cisgender men and women. On average, these groups also interact with BPD officers for longer periods of time, increasing their exposure to risk of violence and arrest. While the data are limited to interactions between BPD officers and TGNC individuals, combining this dataset with police stop data from other cities in Alameda County may highlight similar trends.