Sunshine Week: Gaps in NH data on police-race encounters

Mark Hayward, The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester
·5 min read

Mar. 19—New Hampshire compiles spotty information on police contact with minorities, information that law enforcement and minority leaders say is essential to any effort to weigh issues such as racial profiling or bias in policing.

Theoretically, information about New Hampshire arrests is available broken down by race, gender, Hispanic ancestry and other demographic categories. What is available shows significant disparities. For example, Blacks were nearly four times as likely as Whites to be arrested in New Hampshire in 2019, according to arrest rates the Union Leader calculated based on the data.

But the most recent data — available through a hard-to-find state website — is two years old, and not all police departments report the race of people they arrest, according to the state Department of Safety.

The site also provides racial information about crime victims.

New Hampshire does not break down by race other police encounters, such as traffic stops and crime reporting. Nor are traffic tickets, accident reports and other citations tracked by race.

"Collecting data on the race and ethnicity of people who interact with police officers is critical to ensuring that the state is able to rely on facts in order to combat racism and implicit bias," four Black members of Gov. Chris Sununu's Law Enforcement Accountability, Community and Transparency Commission (LEACT) said last week.

The four — Joseph Lascaze of the ACLU-New Hampshire, James T. McKim of the NAACP Manchester, Ronelle Tshiela of Black Lives Matter Manchester, and criminal defense lawyer Julian Jefferson — issued the statement after the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended 3-2 to strip a data-collection provision from a police reform bill.

The committee recommended it be the subject of further study, a move that delays any enactment of the legislation. The decision was made last week, just days before the start of Sunshine Week, an effort that encourages openness in government.

Several messages left for the chairman of the committee — state Sen. Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry — were not returned.

In a statement, a spokesman for Gov. Chris Sununu said the Republican governor supports all of the recommendations of LEACT.

"He also understands the concerns that some legislators have in how some of the recommendations would be implemented, and is hopeful everyone can work collaboratively to find a path forward," said Sununu spokesman Ben Vihstadt.

In a letter to defense lawyers this week, Deputy Attorney General Jane Young said her agency and the Department of Safety continue to support the LEACT commission.

"It is incredibly disheartening and frustrating to see New Hampshire lawmakers oppose investigating and analyzing data which would shed light on claims of discrimination and racism," the Black LEACT members said in the statement.

The LEACT commission recommended three changes involving data collection: mandate that the approximately 15% of departments that lag in collecting information compile arrest and victim data on the basis of race; require all police departments to compile and publicize data about traffic stops and other encounters by race; and add race as a factor in driver licenses.

In five of the past 10 years, the state attorney general has received federal grants to upgrade data collection, according to the office.

The last round was in 2020, when the attorney general passed through $59,000 to the Department of Safety to upgrade the site. In May, the safety department will seek approvals for a $60,000 federal grant to improve the website's usability.

"The general sentiment is New Hampshire isn't great at data collection," Tshiela said. She said LEACT spent little time discussing data and data collection. She has visited the site and found the information wasn't very accessible. She also questioned why the most recent data is from 2019.

The safety department said the state police must manually review and audit data because not all individual police departments conform to FBI-defined crime categories; that takes time.

While data available on the site goes back to 1997, the safety department said 2013 marks the first year of a high level of participation among police departments.

What the data show

Based on the data available, the Union Leader calculated:

Across New Hampshire, Blacks were arrested on Group A crimes — a category that includes crimes such as assault, robbery, rape, murder, theft, shoplifting, prostitution, drugs and human trafficking — at a rate nearly four times that of Whites. The rate of arrests for Hispanics was about 1 1/2 times higher than that of Whites.

In Manchester, the arrest rate of Blacks for Group A crimes is about twice that of Whites. The rate for Hispanics is 18% higher than that of Whites.

In Nashua, Blacks were arrested for Group A crimes at a rate about three times that of Whites. The rate for Hispanics was about one-third higher that of Whites.

Arrests for low-level crimes also show disparities. In New Hampshire, the arrest rate of Blacks for disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor charge that police often levy against uncooperative people, is nearly five times that of Whites. For Hispanics, the rate is about 50% higher than for Whites.

In Manchester, Blacks are about three times more likely to be arrested for disorderly conduct than Whites. Hispanics are about 25% less likely to be arrested for disorderly conduct than Whites.

In Nashua, Blacks are about 3 1/2 times more likely to be arrested for disorderly conduct than Whites. The arrest rates for disorderly conduct are similar for Whites and Hispanics in the Gate City.

mhayward@unionleader.com

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