Washington — Blacks and Hispanics were twice as likely as whites to report the use of force in encounters with police, said a report that also showed black drivers were more likely than whites to be stopped, searched, handcuffed or ticketed than whites.
Two percent of blacks and Hispanics who had face-to-face encounters with police in 1999 reported force or threatened force, compared with just under 1 percent among whites, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported Sunday.
The report comes as Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has asked Congress to authorize a national study of racial profiling the practice by law enforcement officials of singling out people based on their race. Ashcroft said he wants to get a measure of how prevalent the practice is at local traffic stops.
"I think this is an issue of such importance and magnitude that we should ... make sure we do what's necessary to correct any abuse," said Ashcroft. "It's wrong."
A little more than 12 percent of black drivers were pulled over in 1999, compared to 10.4 percent of whites and 8.8 percent of Hispanics. Black and Hispanic drivers were twice as likely to be physically searched or have their vehicles searched and were more frequently ticketed than whites.
Overall, the study showed that 21 percent of U.S. citizens had encounters with police; force was involved in about 1 percent of those cases. About 422,000 people ages 16 or older out of a total of 44 million people who had encounters with the police said officers used or threatened to use force against them.
About one in four said they did something to provoke officers. The vast majority of those who experienced force were male and under age 32.
The survey involved more than 80,000 people and was carried out during the last six months of 1999.
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