The Role of Administrative Traffic Offenses in the North Carolina Criminal Justice System

This post explores the large role that administrative traffic offenses play in the state’s criminal justice system. The Lab’s Measuring Justice Dashboard shows that non-violent misdemeanor charges make up the bulk of the state system (Figure 1). Figure 1. Composition of Charges in the State System, 2021 Figure Note: DWI refers to impaired driving offenses. The Dashboard also shows that non-impaired driving traffic offenses make up the greatest share of these non-violent misdemeanor offenses and that seven of the top ten most commonly charged offenses in the entire system are administrative traffic offenses. This isn’t just a North Carolina issue. As noted in a recent Lab briefing paper, the most common contact the public has with police is traffic stops. That paper notes that every day in the U.S., police pull over more than 50,000 drivers. Some stops are for roadway safety issues, but many are for minor violations. As seen in the national news, stops for minor violations can turn deadly, and research has found racial differences in traffic stops. Against this background, we wanted to know more about the role of misdemeanor administrative traffic violations in the state system. Here’s what we found. In 2021, misdemeanor administrative traffic offenses accounted for nearly forty percent (39.7%) of all criminal charges statewide. In that year, North Carolina issued over 1.3 million charges; over 524,000 were for misdemeanor administrative traffic violations. That’s a big share of overall charges. We further explored the issue by looking at how things played out at the [...]