ST. PAUL (AP) -- Black, Hispanic and American Indian drivers were more likely to be stopped and searched by police in Minnesota last year than white drivers, even though they were less likely than whites to be found with anything illegal.

The pattern was discovered in a broad-based racial profiling study released Wednesday by the nonprofit Council on Crime and Justice and the Institute on Race and Poverty, which is associated with the University of Minnesota Law School.

"These patterns suggest a strong likelihood that racial/ethnic bias plays a role in traffic stop policies and practices in Minnesota," the authors wrote.

Under a plan passed in the 2001 legislative session, law enforcement agencies were offered state money to purchase video cameras for police vehicles if they agreed to collect traffic-stop data during 2002.

Officers were asked to determine the race of drivers they stopped in 194,189 total stops.

Sixty five police agencies volunteered, and study authors said they found the same basic pattern in nearly every one.

The patterns were especially strong for black and Hispanic drivers.

If police in the study had stopped drivers of all racial groups at the same rates, about 18,800 fewer blacks, 5,800 fewer Hispanics and about 22,500 more whites would have been stopped by the 65 police agencies, they found.

Particularly troubling, the authors said, is that police were far more likely to find contraband during searches of vehicles driven by whites. In all, 24 percent of searches of whites turned up contraband, compared to 11 percent of searches of blacks and 8 percent of searches of Hispanics.

The study found that American Indians were stopped at a slightly greater rate than whites and contraband was found in a slightly lower percentage of stops, about 20 percent.

The patterns were particularly strong in Minneapolis, the largest city participating in the study.

"Taken together, these patterns warrant serious examination," the report says. "It is fair to conclude that the problems that they suggest are not isolated to a handful of jurisdictions or present only in those jurisdictions that chose to participate in this study."

Jurisdictions in racial profiling study

Associated Press

The law enforcement jurisdictions that chose to participate included 31 city police departments, 33 county sheriff's departments, and the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.

The city police departments included: Akeley, Bemidji, Cass Lake, Cloquet, Crosby, Eagle Lake, Fairfax, Faribault, Fridley, Gibbon, Granite Falls, Henning, International Falls, Little Falls, Minneapolis, Minneota, Moorhead, New Hope, Plymouth, Red Wing, Rochester, Sauk Rapids, Savage, Springfield, St. Cloud, Truman, Walker, Willmar, Winnebago, Winthrop, Worthington.

The county sheriff's departments included: Anoka County, Becker County, Beltrami County, Cass County, Cook County, Dakota County, Dodge County, Goodhue County, Grant County, Houston County, Jackson County, Kandiyohi County, Kittson County, Lac qui Parle County, Lake County, Mahnomen County, Marshall County, Norman County, Olmsted County, Pope County, Ramsey County, Red Lake County, Redwood County, Scott County, Sherburne County, Sibley County, Stevens County, Swift County, Todd County, Wadena County, Waseca County, Wilkin County, Yellow Medicine County.