Minorities more likely to be ticketed by Metro Transit, study findsBy Jaime DeLage
jdelage@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 12/17/2015 12:01:00 AM CST | Updated: about 22 hours ago
(Pioneer Press: John Autey)
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When you generate statistics by just counting arrests, how do you determine whether one group is being disproportionately treated or if the group is disproportionately commiting the violation?
Or even just disproportionally using the transit service?
Ridership over the last couple of days that I was up there was racialy diverse with 30% Black Riders and a bunch of students of a rainbow of ethnic diversity from University of MN. Metro Transit Cops are now the largest police force in the Twin Cities areas. The fare collection system of a POP system enforced by Transit Police is also the most expensive. There is no “Ticket Lady” civialian to write tickets no instead you have Transit Cops @ 50,000.00 a year plus benifits.
The story in the Twin Cities was that a Study Commsioned by the ACLU showed that blacks where getting more then there fair share of fare evading tickets. This was also on the cusp of a young black man getting shot by police while handcuffed. The Twin Citys Black pop is only 20% or so see-
Race and ethnicity[edit]
As of the 2006-2008 American Community Survey, the racial composition was as follows:
I am not taking a side in your claim, I am still waiting for an explaination of how you determined whether one group is being singled out for arrest or that group is commiting more of the violations.
Citing population ratios is a meaningless red herring. Is there a mechanism in place to determine who is being cited vs who is just being warned and who is not even being checked? Some agencies do it with non punative warning tickets. Other agencies just don’t issue warnings. You either have a ticket or you get a citation and put off the train.
The analysis is clear and appears to take into account the cautionary notes raised here. Excerpt:
Analysis of Full Dataset • There are no significant differences between rates of warnings, citations, or arrests across racial groups for the most serious incidents (gross misdemeanors and felonies). The vast majority of these incidents result in arrests across racial groups. • Regarding all incidents, black adults are estimated to be 1.16 times (16 percent) more likely to be cited rather than warned when compared with white adults. • Black adults are estimated to be 1.38 times (38 percent) more likely to be arrested rather than warned when compared with white adults. • Native American adults are estimated to be 1.55 times (55 percent) more likely to be cited rather than warned when compared with white adults. Metro Transit – Analysis of Police Incidents by Race 3 • Native American adults are estimated to be 1.93 times (93 percent) more likely to be arrested rather than warned when compared with white adults. • There are no significant differences in the likelihood of being cited rather than warned across racial groups for juveniles; however, it is noted that sample sizes are smaller. There is not enough data to estimate if there is a difference between the likelihood to be arrested across racial groups for juveniles.
As to why there is a Metro Transit Police in the first place for a city with only two lines when Chicago Metra dismissed all the BNSF and Metra police and replaced them with private contractors.
Metra still has its own police force. Unfortunately, like most railroad police forces, it is spread pretty thin for its service area.
CATS (Charlotte Area Transit System) employs fare inspectors who occasionally ride the trains, but Charlotte Mecklenberg Police also do random checks. An officer or two gets on the train and rides for one or two stops while checking tickets then gets off and gets on the next train going the other way so he/she winds up back at the station where he left his car.
You can tell the people riding without a ticket. They look up and down the car before they get on. They stand right next to the door and look carefully up and down each platform as the train pulls in. If they see a uniform on the platform they quickly get off and try to stay in the middle of the crowd without making eye contact.
Some of the busier stations you are not allowed to be on the platform without a ticket.