December 2, 2021
Olympia, WA – In September of this year, WSP announced the early findings of a 5-year study of agency traffic stops by Washington State University. Today, WSU’s Division of Governmental Studies and Services released the final study and headlined their announcement with “Analysis: No systematic agency bias in Washington State Patrol traffic stops.”
WSU examined enforcement decisions, searches, citation and arrest rates, as well as the rate of found contraband substances over a 5-year period for over 7M WSP contacts during the years studied. The exhaustive study included over 3.4M WSP initiated traffic contacts, over 47,000 calls for service and WSP initiated physical assists, and more than 175,000 collision investigations.
WSU’s full Traffic Stop Data Report can be found at dgss.wsu.edu.
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