Governments like to keep track of all sorts of things, for all sorts of reasons, and the U. S. Department of Justice, is one of those departments that does exactly that. In their report, of 2011, dated September 2013, and revised on October 27, 2016, bjs.gov reports that: "In 2011, over 62.9 million U.S. residents age 16 or older, or 26% of the population, had one or more contacts with police during the prior 12 months," which is an absolutely staggering number of contacts by the population with the police, of which, those contacts are broken down into two basic categories: street stops and traffic stops. A street stop is defined as: "…contact involved being stopped by police on the street or in public, but not in a moving motor vehicle." An absolutely fascinating part of this study deals with the perception by the person being contacted as to whether they believed that the conduct initiated by the police indicated that the "Police behaved properly", in which the absolute lowest percentage of those feeling that they the police behaved properly were street stops of black people at the abysmal rate of just 37.7%. On the other hand, in comparison, in regards to traffic stops blacks indicated that the police behaved properly at 82.7%.
Clearly, this study also shows a substantial difference between the perception that the police behaved properly between street stops and traffic stops, in which "A higher percentage of drivers in traffic stops (88%) than persons involved in street stops (71%) believed the police behaved properly during the stop." That street stops have a substantially lower amount of people that believe that the police acted properly is especially disappointing, because unlike vehicle stops, in which the officer because of being behind the subject vehicle and with car windows often obscuring the officer's view of the driver, a given officer may not easily be sure of even the sex of the driver or the race of such, until that driver is pulled over. On the other hand, street stops, allow a given officer, to have in many instances, a view that will permit them to at a minimum know the sex of the person being stopped, and many times the race of that person, before that contact is actually made, so that when blacks indicate their dissatisfaction with street stops, it is implied very strongly, that they have deliberately been targeted by the police to be stopped, based primarily upon their race.
In any event, the amount of citizens contacted by the police either through street or traffic stops, at over 62.9 million U.S. residents, is a phenomenal amount of people that have such contact in a given year, in which, some of those people contacted by the police, won’t just have a conversation, or won't just get a lecture, or won't just get a warning, but will get a traffic ticket, or will get searched, or will have their vehicle searched, or will have to deal with police threats or police physical force, including lethal force, or will get arrested. While it is conceivable that stops initiated by police are received by such, as a courtesy and as the proper and due consideration one gets from a department that ostensibly serves and protects the public, the real point to take away from this, is that this is not contact initiated by residents to the police, but contact initiated by the police at an absolutely astonishing rate of incidents against millions and millions of people in 2011.
In point of fact, when the police contact anybody, the police will as a matter of course, have on their person, a lethal weapon, along with their arresting authority, so that, those that are contacted, whether guilty of a traffic violation or not, guilty of jaywalking or not, typically are not going to see such contact as being an experience that they were looking forward to, though they may well appreciate the professionalism displayed by the officers just doing their job in a competent and courteous manner. That being said, it is well to remember, that being able to travel the roadways of a given city or town, via a vehicle or walking, without undue interference by the policing arm of the state, seems not to be a given or the norm in this country that professes liberty and justice for all.