Stanford big data study finds racial disparities in Oakland, Calif.

Oakland, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, has a population of 390,724; 34.5 percent is white, 28 percent is African American, and 25.4 percent is Latino, according to 2010 census data.

The Oakland Police Department has been under federal monitoring for more than a decade since the so-called Riders case involving police misconduct. The Stanford researchers, led by psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, were engaged to assist Oakland in complying with the federal order to collect and analyze stop data by race. Oakland police started wearing body cameras in 2010 – one of the first departments in the U.S. to do so.

The two-year Stanford study, conducted in close cooperation and collaboration with the Oakland Police Department, examined data from body camera footage, police stops and reports, and community and resident surveys.

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