The Chicago Reporter obtained 2007 traffic stop data collected by the Illinois Department of Transportation, which compiles information gathered from law
enforcement agencies throughout the state, as required by the Illinois Racial Profiling Law passed in 2003. The data contain records such as race and ethnicity of each driver
involved in traffic stops and the reason for the stop.
The Reporter used Census 2000 to pull demographic information for each community in the six-county Chicago area in order to compare the size of Latino’s driving-age
population with the share of Latinos involved in traffic stops. Census 2000 offers the latest official statistics available for driving-age population.
The analysis excludes communities that had fewer than 25,000 residents, and it also doesn’t include those that recorded less than 200 traffic stops involving Latino
drivers or 1,000 overall stops.