Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

by Jennifer L. Eberhardt

Together, we analyzed over twenty-eight thousand police stops that occurred in 2013 and 2014. We found that roughly 60 percent of the stops officers made in Oakland were of black people, although blacks made up only 28 percent of the Oakland population at the time. Blacks were disproportionately stopped even when we controlled for factors like the crime rate and the racial breakdown of residents in the areas where the stops took place. We found that not only were blacks significantly more likely than whites to be stopped but blacks were significantly more likely to be searched, handcuffed, and arrested. In fact, while 65 percent of Oakland police officers had conducted a discretionary search on a black person, only 23 percent had conducted such a search on a white person across the same thirteen-month period. And 72 percent had handcuffed a black person during the course of a stop—even when no arrest was made—whereas only 26 percent of officers had handcuffed a white person who was not arrested.