Statistical Transparency of Policing [STOP]

Nevada Data Collection Program

Overview of the Nevada STOP Project

The 2021 Nevada legislature adopted Senate Bill 236 (SB 236). This bill required law enforcement agencies to report traffic stop data collected by officers to the Nevada Department of Public Safety (DPS) at least annually. The information that officers must collect are: (1) the stop date, time, and location; (2) the officer’s perception of the “race, ethnicity, age and sex of the person stopped”; (3) the nature of the stop and the statutory citation for the alleged violation that led to the stop; and (4) stop outcome information, including if the stop led to a warning, citation or summons, if a search was performed (and if so, the type of search and its results), and if the stop led to an arrest. DPS must develop a standardized method for use by all law enforcement officers to record this traffic stop data. 

SB 236 (2021) also authorized DPS to contract with a third party to conduct a statistical analysis of the collected traffic stop data to “identify patterns or practices of profiling” (S.B. 236, 81st Leg., Reg. Sess., (Nev. 2021), Sections 17 and 17.5).The Nevada Statistical Transparency of Policing project assists with this analysis. It is led by an interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) from the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, School of Public Health, and Department of Criminal Justice at the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. 

Funding for the Nevada STOP project is currently provided by Federal 1906 funds administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and administered through the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety.