Across Massachusetts, police have begun collecting data to assess whether the traffic stops they make are characterized by racial disparities.

The new effort was prompted by findings at Northeastern's Institute on Race and Justice, whose 2004 racial and gender profiling study of Massachusetts police stops raised questions about racial disparities. Now the state's Executive Office of Public Safety has ordered local police departments to examine their traffic-stop activities.

Such an examination is long overdue, says institute director Jack McDevitt. "For years, some community members have alleged that police stop people because of race," he says.

The belief caught fire in the 1990s shortly after New Jersey police settled a $6 million lawsuit arising from claims of illegal traffic stops. The U.S. Department of Justice began an effort to hold police accountable for patterns of civil rights violations. At the Justice Department's request, the Institute on Race and Justice developed a questionnaire for determining the validity of traffic stops.

In 2003 and 2004, the institute released two large studies of the practices of Rhode Island and Massachusetts police departments. Both studies, McDevitt says, found that traffic stops of nonwhite drivers were disproportionate to the makeup of the driving population.

McDevitt calls Massachusetts secretary of public safety Edward Flynn a "hero" for using the institute's data to force police to begin self-examination, an initiative that has drawn both praise and criticism from police departments.

"My hope is that the work starting now on data collection will help identify any instances of race-related stops, so that we can all deal with it," says McDevitt. "Overall, this effort shows that police are taking it all seriously."

• E Line Story Index