Failing to report ethnicity on arrest forms is a problem for Latino Americans, research shows
- Maggie Brown
- May 3, 2019
- 9 min read
Updated: May 5, 2019
Latino Americans under-represented in criminal justice system because of race and ethnicity categories on arrest, booking papers
Vanessa Bravo, associate professor of communications at Elon University, believes that race does not exist.
“Race is related to the color of skin,” she said. It is what she describes “a social creation.” She is passionate about the notion that all humans — no matter the color of their skin — are from the same race.
Ethnicity, on the other hand, she defines as “the region where you trace your roots to." People belong to ethnic groups, which divides society. Often, these groups align with skin color. But not always.
The U.S. Census Bureau uses these two categories to identify a person — race and ethnicity. Race is focused on outward appearance and ethnicity is focused on country of origin. The Bureau tracks a person with origins from Spanish-speaking countries as “Hispanic,” and people with other origins as “Non-Hispanic.”
“White,” “Black,” “Asian” and “Other” are common race labels. But Bravo said for those who are Latino, the question of race that the U.S. Census Bureau poses can be tricky.
When filling out forms, a light-skinned Latino may identify themselves as White, while an Afro-Latino may says they are black. There is also an option to check “Some other race,” which was the third-largest racial group reported in census results from 2000 to 2010.
There is much discussion over how the federal government should track race and ethnicity. Researchers argue filling out basic paperwork for standardized tests, local municipalities and general applications is harder for Latinos because of the question — What is your race?
The Urban Institute, a social and economic policy research organization, has been analyzing the impact of this difference at the local level in state and county criminal justice systems. In a study published in 2014, it found that 15 states do not report ethnicity on arrest forms.
The report said, “A state’s failure to collect and report ethnicity data affects not only Latinos but the entire criminal justice system. States that only count people as ‘black’ or ‘white’ likely label most of their Latino prison population ‘white,’ artificially inflating the number of ‘white’ people in prison and masking the white/black disparity in the criminal justice system.”
North Carolina is among the 15 states that Urban Institute found did not collect and report the ethnicity of an individual arrested.
Eddie Caldwell, executive vice president and general counsel of the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association said that the reason North Carolina sheriffs departments don’t track ethnicity data is because they aren’t required to. When someone is arrested, the first piece of documentation they will show is their license, Caldwell said.
Ethnicity is not used to identify an individual by the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. Race is. To Caldwell’s knowledge, there is no push for change in the way race and ethnicity is collected and reported in the sheriff’s association.
Above is a State Bureau of Investigations sample report. According to Caldwell, the SBI sets the precedent for arrest forms in North Carolina. Race is listed and not ethnicity.
Caldwell said race is cut and dry, when ethnicity isn’t.
“Ethnicity is something that is very difficult to determine. People are easily, and often wrongly, criticized for making assumptions based on ‘how they think somebody looks,’” Caldwell said.
But Bravo said leaving out ethnicity on arrest forms leaves the door wide open to the possibility racial profiling.
“If they really are counted as white, then they become invisible, for example, to understand,” Bravo said about Latino Americans.
Bravo said if a police department is arresting Latino Americans at a higher rate, it would be impossible for researchers to tell. Latinos are reported as white and she said they are hidden.
Brian Long, assistant Burlington Police Chief, said his department is “very much interested in analyzing” his office’s numbers to make sure they are not racially profiling. He said his office is constantly checking its numbers to ensure they are not arresting “Black” more than “White.”
When filling out an arrest form, Long said officers are trained to ask individuals their race or use the race listed on someone’s license.
“On the front side, we train people to investigate not based on race, but positively on the individual,” Long said. This is to avoid racial profiling.
But, it is impossible for them to see if they are arresting Latino Americans at a higher rate since their office does not track ethnicity.
“We can’t break down Latino, no,” Long said. “We struggle with that.”
He said his office would “not object” to tracking ethnicity on its forms. Burlington Police Chief Jeffrey Smythe has been vocal about bettering its relationship with the Latino Community. Reporting ethnicity would be a step in that direction.
“The state has never been real clear on those," Smythe said, about race and ethnicity on the SBI forms.
Smythe said he works hard to build partnerships with the local Latino Community. He said when he began at the police department in 2013, the office only had two Spanish-speaking officers. Now his department has six. He said he worked hard to build trust through community programs and police academies, all held in Spanish.
Felicia Arriaga, assistant professor in sociology at Appalachian State University studies racial profiling in relation to traffic tickets. In North Carolina, it has been state policy to gather and report ethnicity, race and sex of each person stopped, searched and given a citation at a traffic stop since 1999, according to Senate Bill ## .
Arriaga's research has focused on examining racial profiling at traffic stops because there the data is more available. But she said that gathering data on ethnicity is about more than getting an accurate representation of a population.
“Is it just a challenge to the point of like, data accuracy? Or like, is actually a challenge because there are systematic and disproportionate types of things happening,” Arriaga said.
Alamance County reporting race, ethnicity
Alamance County's Hispanic population is 4 percent higher than the state average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Alamance County Sheriff's Office and all the police departments in Alamance County — Graham Police Department, Town of Elon Police, BPD and the Gibsonville Police Department — do not record someone’s ethnicity when arresting them. They each only report and collect race.
Mark Dockery, sergeant for the ACSO, said that it is not necessary for their office to record ethnicity, so it doesn’t.
“Basically, we do not collect ethnicity data because it has historically not been a part of standardized state forms,” Dockery said. “There is a way to track it with modern software — although the forms still do not call for it — but we simply do not collect that data just as we do not collect other data that is unnecessary for our purposes.”
An example Magistrate's order from the ACSO.
Terry Johnson, Sheriff of Alamance County, is a vocal member of the county. He often refers to the Hispanic population in public meetings and in media interviews.
Most famously, he said at an Alamance County Board of Commissioners meeting in January that “immigrants are raping our citizens in many, many ways.” Johnson was referring specifically to Latino immigrants. His claim was a part of an hour long presentation to show that Hispanics were committing the most sex crimes — and other crimes — in the county.
Johnson made these statements in January in an effort to startle the crowds that attend the county commissioners meetings to get more funding for his jail — which also serves as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center.
After he made the claims, he faced backlash in the community. Robert Vellani, teacher at Cummings High School, wrote an editorial titled, “Someone must confront Sheriff Johnson on rape claims” that was published in the Burlington Times-News. He feels that the sheriff is inciting fear in the lives of his students and should be held accountable.
"Out of the total number of crimes committed in Alamance County, how many of those were committed by illegal aliens?" Vellani said.
He believed that Johnson was lying at the commissioners meeting in January. He said wanted someone— whether it be the ACSO or the Times-News — to show him the exact numbers on the total crimes committed by Hispanics.
But the ACSO does not track ethnicity. It only tracks race, like all sheriffs departments in North Carolina. Local researchers claim it is almost impossible to tell what ethnic group commits the most sex crimes in North Carolina counties.
Frank Baumgartner is researcher and professor for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and expert in racial profiling. He claims that the ACSO is “on shaky ground,” with claims that the Hispanic population commits a high number of sex crimes in Alamance County.
Baumgartner’s research focuses on looking at the North Carolina Division of Courts’ records. According to data gathered by Baumgartner from the North Carolina Division of Courts, in the last five years less than 2 percent of people arrested for sex crimes in Alamance County were labeled Hispanic. Over 60 percent of people arrested for a sex crime were labeled white in court records.
Less than 2 percent of people arrested for sex crimes in Alamance County were labeled Hispanic. Over 60 percent of people arrested for a sex crime were labeled white in court records.
This data is available because when a Latino-American is arrested and processed, their court records will label them as Hispanic. But rather than Hispanic being listed as an ethnic category — as the U.S. Census Bureau identifies Hispanic — it is a race in its own in the Division of Courts. This identification is unique.
The ACSO reports ethnicity in its traffic reports because of the state's policy. In 2014, the office was sued by the Department of Justice for racially profiling Latino Americans during traffic stops. According to calculations from Elon News Network in 2016, from January 2009 to 2012, ACSO was twice as likely to stop a Hispanic as a non-Hispanic. The DOJ dropped the lawsuit, which Johnson said he is proud of.
An example traffic stop report from the Burlington Police Department, issued by the SBI.
A community responds
The non-profit organization Faith Action International House in Greensboro is working to develop a solution and represent Latino Americans across the state. Faith Action provides local partners — like the BPD — with its ID card.
Some international residents may struggle getting basic identification like a license because of the paperwork required from the NCDMV. While the community ID does not replace a state ID like a license, it helps local law enforcement, banks, hospitals and other entities identify international people.
Though these IDs do not represent ethnicity, it does list “country of birth.” The program does not advertise itself as a solution to a systemic problem of how Latinos are recorded in the criminal justice system, but Faith Action said it believes it is headed in the right direction.
Sophia Mosquera, director of community education and advocacy for Faith Action said that the point of the program is to build trust between local law enforcement and the Latino community.
“We try to have that bridge-building work,” Mosquera said. “Because otherwise we realize these communities will not talk to each other.”
Smythe said he understands the value of representing Latinos with this ID. He decided to make it a corporate policy to take the Faith Action ID into consideration when citing or arresting a person.
“The first and most valuable part of the program is that it builds trust with the local police department,” Smythe said.
Local pharmacies and hospitals have also agreed to accept the community ID. But, the ACSO does not have the same policy. Instead, it is up to the discretion of each officer in the field.
Turning to the Elon Student
Lucia Jervis, a senior at Elon University from Ecuador, said she never thought of herself as white until she came to Elon. But when she was applying to college in the United States, she had to place herself into a category.
“I remember asking my mom, I don’t know what to fill in,” she said. “And my mom was like, ‘well, white. All our family’s from Europe. And do the Hispanic ethnicity.’”
She said in Ecuador, race was not as big of a deal as it is in the United States. In the U.S., there are boxes she has to put herself into.
Ana Ford, junior at Elon, is from Puerto Rico. She said before living in North Carolina, she never had to think about the difference between race and ethnicity. Now she does.
“I had to educate myself on the differences, and what the history was behind white Latinos and how to mark the right choice,” Ford said.
On forms today, Ford marks “White” and “Hispanic.”
“It also boxes a lot of people and their identities, while they’re in high school, without giving them any explanations on why they may be white or black but check Hispanic,” Ford said.
Moving Forward
The North Carolina state house recently passed a bill to conduct a statewide study to examine criminal justice data and how it is collected. It is still under review. Neither race and ethnicity are stated in the bill.
Arriaga supports the bill. She hopes that the state, along with the NCSA, will take a closer look at traffic stops and arrest forms to reduce the chance of racial profiling.
“There should be a broader conversation between the Sheriff's Association and Police Chief's Association to have a conversation around people who are tracking some of these things,” she said.
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