Summary
"The data in this report were drawn from the Bureau
of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) 2011 Police-Public Contact
Survey (PPCS), a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information
from a nationally representative sample of persons in U.S.
households. The PPCS collects information on contact with
police during a 12-month period. This report examines
involuntary contacts with police, specifically those that
occurred when the person was the driver of a motor vehicle
(i.e., traffic stops) or when the person was stopped by the
police while in a public place but not in a moving vehicle
(i.e., street stops). It describes variations in perceptions of
police behavior and police legitimacy during traffic and
street stops. (For more information on how perceptions of
police behavior and legitimacy were measured in this report,
see survey questions on page 12.) All findings in this report
are based on persons for whom the most recent contact in
2011 was in a street stop or as the driver in a traffic stop."--Page 1.