Racial Disparities in Policing in Mill Valley (2022 Report)

See full report | See Pacific Sun: Data shows racial inequities in Mill Valley policing | See Marin I-J: Mill Valley, activists disagree on police stop data | See SF Chronicle: Fault for biased policing also lies in who calls the cops

For more than a year, the MVFREE Police Team has met regularly with Mill Valley Police Chief Navarro and his leadership team in a Police Working Group to explore and implement anti-bias measures and other law enforcement best practices at the Mill Valley Police Department (MVPD). The Chief has generally taken a collaborative approach and shown a readiness to adapt to rapidly evolving laws, standards and practices for safe and equitable policing in California. We are disappointed, however, by the failure in the Chief’s October 3 Staff Report (“Staff Report”) to acknowledge or meaningfully address the deep racial disparities reflected in the MVPD data collected under the Racial and identity Profiling Act of 2015 (RIPA).

RIPA prohibits racial and identity profiling by police and requires data collection and reporting to “eliminate racial and identity profiling and improve diversity and racial and identity sensitivity in law enforcement.”1 RIPA data makes it possible to accurately measure racial impacts of police detentions and other police practices. In this way, RIPA enables police agencies to conduct evidence-based self-assessments, to develop targeted strategies for continuous improvement, and to measure their progress over time. In addition, each year, the State RIPA Board2 analyzes available detention data, conducts research and prescribes new policies, training and best practices that represent the leading edge of bias-free policing.

This Report uses the formula prescribed by the RIPA Board to analyze MVPD RIPA data provided by the MVPD on all detentions from June 1, 2021, through May 30, 2022. Unfortunately, the data analysis reveals large and persistent racial disparities in Mill Valley police practices. These disparities appear at every stage of the process, from who gets detained to how individuals are treated during a detention:

• Black people are detained by Mill Valley police at 6.5 times the rate of White people.

• Latinx people are detained by Mill Valley police at 3.02 times the rate of White people.

• The evidence shows no correlation between the greatly elevated Black and Latinx detentions in Mill Valley and increased criminality.

• Mill Valley community members call the police about Black people at nearly 20 times the rate they do about White people, yet a community member’s call for service about a White person in Mill Valley is nearly twice as likely to result in an arrest as a call for service about a Black person.

• Black people are searched at 3.12 times the rate of Whites, though White people are equally likely to be found in possession of contraband.

• Black people are held in a police car during their detention at 3.25 times the rate of White people and at the curbside at 3.14 times the rate of White people.

• MVPD detentions of Black people last an average of 36% longer than detentions of White people.

• Detentions of Latinx people last 20% longer than those of White people.

  See full report.
  
  See Pacific Sun: Data shows racial inequities in Mill Valley policing
  See Marin I-J: Mill Valley, activists disagree on police stop data
  See SF Chronicle: Fault for biased policing also lies in who calls the cops