Racial Disparities in Stops by the Metropolitan Police Department: 2020 Data Update

This is an update to the June 16, 2020 report published by the ACLU-DC and ACLU Analytics, Racial Disparities in Stops by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. The original report analyzed five months of data collected pursuant to the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act on stops conducted by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) from July 22, 2019 to December 31, 2019.

This update analyzes the stops conducted by MPD between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. The 2020 stops data show that MPD continues to disproportionately stop and search Black people in the District. The stark racial disparities present in the 2019 stop data have not changed. The 2020 data, like the 2019 data, support community members’ repeated assertions that MPD’s stop practices unfairly overpolice the Black community and require serious scrutiny and structural change.