percentage of individuals who, after they came in contact with the police for a motor
vehicle-related reason, were arrested.
The additional data analysis performed was based on a comparison of the 2014
motor vehicle contact data with a specific baseline. When reviewing this particular
analysis, it should be noted that there is disagreement, in the literature, regarding the
appropriate baseline to be used when analyzing motor vehicle-related contact
information. Of the baseline measures available, the Arlington Police Department opted
to adopt, as a baseline measure, the Fair Roads Standard. This particular baseline is
based on data obtained through the U.S. Census Bureau (2010) relevant to the number of
households that have access to vehicles while controlling for the race and ethnicity of the
heads of households.
It is clear that census data presents challenges to any effort made at establishing a
fair and accurate racial profiling analysis. That is, census data contains information on all
residents of a particular community, regardless of the fact they may or may not be among
the driving population. Further, census data, when used as a baseline of comparison,
presents the challenge that it captures information related to city residents only. Thus,
excluding individuals who may have come in contact with the Arlington Police
Department in 2014 but live outside city limits. In some cases, the percentage of the
population that comes in contact with the police but lives outside city limits represents a
substantial volume of all motor vehicle-related contacts made in a given year.
Since 2002, several civil rights groups in Texas expressed their desire and made
recommendations to the effect that all police departments should rely, in their data
analysis, on the Fair Roads Standard. This source contains census data specific to the
number of “households” that have access to vehicles. Thus, proposing to compare
“households” (which may have multiple residents and only a few vehicles) with
“contacts” (an individual-based count). This, in essence, constitutes a comparison that
may result in ecological fallacy. Despite this, the Arlington Police Department made a
decision that it would use this form of comparison (i.e., census data relevant to
households with vehicles) in an attempt to demonstrate its “good will” and
“transparency” before the community. Thus, the Fair Roads Standard data obtained and
used in this study is specifically relevant to the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Metroplex.
It should also be noted that the Arlington Police Department opted to report on
ALL contacts made during the course of a motor vehicle contact. In the first table,
contacts made in the course of a motor vehicle contact (not including pedestrians) were
reported. This does include written warnings. Thus, the APD, for the sake of
transparency, reported data beyond the minimum requirements of Tier 2.
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