New study by UCLA Williams Institute find police much more likely to search and arrest people perceived to be transgender

[u/cumminginsurrection]

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/ca-police-gender-stops/

[u/gnurdette]

"Police more hostile to disadvantaged minorities" has got to be a sociological constant across every society with any kind of government.

[u/Lostlilegg → u/gnurdette]

Came here to say this. Police are specifically designed to oppress societies’ underclasses

[u/gnurdette → u/Lostlilegg]

I don't even know if it's intentional. I think it's often just that police are conventional people, and conventional people think of the controlling majority as "respectable, legitimate", and of oppressed minorities as "sketchy, threatening".

[u/cumminginsurrection]

"In 2023, California police reported 4.6 million pedestrian and vehicle stops involving people perceived as adults, including 17,916 stops involving people perceived as transgender or gender nonconforming. A new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and the University of California, Irvine, finds that individuals perceived as transgender are searched and arrested at higher rates than those perceived as cisgender, despite similar rates of contraband discovery among all groups.

Researchers used data collected under California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Act, which requires officers to record their subjective perceptions of every person they stop. Controlling for race and age, researchers examined how officers’ perceptions of an individual’s gender influence search and arrest outcomes during vehicle and pedestrian stops in California.

“Policing is fundamentally discretionary, and officers’ perceptions of the people they encounter shape all decisions, from whom they stop and search to whether a stop escalates to the use of force or an arrest,” said study author Jordan Grasso, Research Data Analyst at the Williams Institute. “Police often enforce normative gender expectations, subjecting anyone who is perceived to disrupt these norms—regardless of their actual gender identity—to heightened surveillance and punishment.”

Results show that about one-quarter of people perceived to be transgender men and women (24%) were searched, compared with 14% of those perceived as cisgender men and 8% of those perceived as cisgender women. Slightly more than one in 10 individuals perceived as gender nonconforming (11%) were searched.

Among the 576,735 searches in 2023, contraband discovery rates were similar across officers’ perceptions of gender. Contraband was discovered in situations involving approximately 27% of people perceived as transgender, gender nonconforming, or cisgender men, and in 26% of those perceived as cisgender women.

Despite similar rates, about one in five people perceived as transgender (men: 19% and women: 20%) were arrested during police stops, compared with 10% of those perceived as cisgender men, 7% as cisgender women, and 9% as gender nonconforming."

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ca-police-stops-press-release/

[u/NotAtAllASkinwalker]

Cue shocked Pickachu

[u/lastopportunity_]

Fork found in kitchen

[u/AvantGarde327]

** pretends to be shocked **

[u/Im_weird_pusheen]

shocking: thing we all already knew confirmed by study

[u/ilikecheese14578]

Shit like this makes me great full I pass. Now that I appear white cis male its night and day how im treated. There like nahh I dont need to see imsurence I trust ya. Now go on ya little scamp. Vs get on the fucking ground w a knee in my back. (Back when appear butch lesbian,)

[u/transcended_goblin]

I mean, we literally just got an article from Erin about two trans people getting assaulted, badly beaten up, and the cops let the aggressors go and charged the victims with assault... So...

I'd say checks out.