A temporary detention involves a police officer holding and questioning an individual for a short amount of time. The police only need reasonable suspicion for a temporary detention. Detentions may be accompanied by some form of search or frisk, though not all detentions involve a search. Detentions can be dispatched in response to a call or initiated by an officer.
This analysis is based on records of temporary detentions made by the City of Charlottesville Police. The data was received in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by Jeff Fogel made over multiple time periods. Each data set was structured slightly differently, and the data for 2012 and 2014 covered only half of each year.
Navigate to additional pages for further analysis:
Population estimates are from the 5-year American Community Survey 2013-2017 estimates, to overlap with the time period of the detention data; population percents are based on only the Black and White populations of Charlottesville to align with data on race available in the detention data.
Trends:
The data does not record why police enter certain spaces, whether it is an officer-initiated discretionary stop or a response to a call. We also do not have data on whether or not a detainment led to an arrest. The offense listed is the reason the police officer recorded to justify the stop based on reasonable suspicion, not a determination that the offense occured. Beacuse of this, it is difficult to say that police detainments are an indicator of crime. Fewer detainments does not immediatley signify less crime in an area, just less police activity.
Below, we highlight three areas, a predominantly black residential space, a predominantly white residential space, and a public walking mall to investigate who police detain and where.
# A tibble: 9 x 8
# Groups: NAME, RACE [6]
NAME BEAT_NO RACE SFTYPE Counts total RaceTot lab_pos
<chr> <dbl> <fct> <chr> <dbl> <int> <dbl> <dbl>
1 "Martha Jefferson" 8 Black STOP WITH SEARC… -2 6 -2 -4
2 "Martha Jefferson" 8 White Search WITHOUT … 3 6 4 6
3 "Martha Jefferson" 8 White STOP WITH SEARC… 1 6 4 6
4 "Prospect\\Orange… 21 Black Search WITHOUT … -7 29 -22 -24
5 "Prospect\\Orange… 21 Black STOP WITH SEARC… -15 29 -22 -24
6 "Prospect\\Orange… 21 White STOP WITH SEARC… 7 29 7 9
7 "Ridge St" 12 Black Search WITHOUT … -8 75 -64 -66
8 "Ridge St" 12 Black STOP WITH SEARC… -56 75 -64 -66
9 "Ridge St" 12 White STOP WITH SEARC… 11 75 11 13Historically, racial covenants prohibited Black individuals from living in the Martha Jefferson and Locust Grove. That legacy continues today
The Downtown Mall is a public space for free use by Charlottesville residents.
Police officers record a reason for detaining an individual. We recoded these reasons into the following categories: (1) Narcotics related, (2) Suspicious circumstances, (3) Disorderly conduct (including drunkeness), (4) Crimes on persons (e.g., assult, robbery, weapons), (5) Crimes on property (e.g., burglary, vandalism, trespassing), (6) Traffic-related (e.g., traffic stops, violations, accidents), and (7) everything else (e.g., assistance, unidentified). While several of the reasons represent categories of crimes, the recorded reason reflects the reasonable suspicion of an officer at the time of the stop, not a conclusion that the given crime has been committed. We do not have a record for whether the stop led to an arrest for all of the data provided.
The data from 2015 did not contain the reason for detention; detemtions from 2015 are not included here.
The Charlottesville policing data was acquired by attorney Jeff Fogel through Freedom of Information Act requests. The site was created by Michele Claibourn and Sam Powers, with contributions from Enrique Unruh, in a partnership between the Equity Center at UVA and Jordy Yager’s Determined series with Vinegar Hill Magazine and Charlottesville Tomorrow.
This is a work in progress and we plan to keep building and improving it. We appreciate all feedback – questions, corrections, concerns, ideas to make it better. You can reach us at CvilleEquityAtlas@virginia.edu. The source code to generate the analysis and this site are available on GitHub.