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State police to collect data, analyze potential bias in policing

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State police Commissioner Col. Robert Evanchick announced Tuesday troopers statewide are participating in a yearlong data collection program to help research and identify any potential racial bias in policing.

As of Jan. 1, troopers will be documenting additional demographic information among 30 “fields,” like driver and passenger age, gender, race and ethnicity, according to a news release. More details on the information to be included in the reporting can be found on the state police website under Field Regulation 6-18: Contact Data Reporting.

State police communications director Ryan Tarkowski said the data will be collected from the troopers’ observations during every trooper-initiated incident, like traffic stops, regardless of whether it resulted in a warning, speeding ticket, vehicle search or arrest.

According to the release, the collected data will be analyzed by a team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati, which will be led by Robin Engel, who holds a doctorate in criminal justice and is a professor at the school. Their analysis will seek out any “patterns of racial or ethnic disparities in policing” and make recommendations on policy and training, the release states.

“It’s not just that we’re collecting this data and sitting on it,” Tarkowski said Tuesday. “We’re relying on a third party to make those recommendations.”

Part of the information recorded will be the duration of the call and what took place, like a vehicle search, results of a search or an arrest, the release said.

“Troopers take an oath to enforce the law ‘without any consideration of class, color, creed or condition,’ and this data collection effort is one way to show the public we are upholding that oath,” Evanchick said in the release. “Regular and ongoing analysis by a neutral third party is a critical part of this program that emphasizes our department’s commitment to transparency and continuous improvement.”

According to University of Cincinnati’s website, Engel, who is the director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Police Research and Policy at the university, has been involved in similar research for decades. Her work has been published numerous times, including in a book she co-authored, titled “The Power to Arrest: Lessons from Research.”

Engel, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, has done previous contact data reporting for the Pennsylvania State Police from 2002 to 2011, according to the news release. This new program, however, will be conducted by much more advanced technology.

“Contact data reports were previously completed and reviewed by hand, which was a cumbersome and time intensive method,” Evanchick said. “For this project, we have digitally streamlined the process and integrated contact data reports with our existing mobile office environment to minimize the impact data collection has on the duration of traffic stops.”

Tarkowski said the state police have been working to put this together for more than a year now.

“It took some time to get all the technology in place,” he said. “Then COVID-19 came along and slowed some things down for a while.”

The state police anticipated Engel’s team will provide regular feedback with a final analysis in April 2022, the release states. PSP plans to continue the program in “subsequent years,” according to the release.

Tarkowski said in light of national conversations regarding community policing and that the public is “having these conversations” more often, the organization hopes this data collection and analysis will improve transparency and “build trust and legitimacy with our department and the people that we serve.”

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