The Department of Justice has completed their civil rights investigation of Ferguson, Mo., and has found a racial disparity in the statistics that has caused them to determine that the Ferguson Police Department has been routinely violating the constitutional rights of black residents. The report, which is based on a six-month investigation and is scheduled for release on Wednesday, includes information on crime statistics in the city over the past two years, statistics which appear to suggest that only black people break the law.

Ferguson’s population is one-third white. However, even though black people account for only 67 percent of the population, they made up 93 percent of arrests between 2012 and 2014, 85 percent of traffic stops, and 90 percent of tickets. Blacks accounted for 95 percent of all arrests for jaywalking, which relies largely on police discretion. There was also a pattern detected of police using unreasonable force against black citizens. It was found that in 88 percent of the cases where force was used by the police department, it was against African Americans.

The investigators also reviewed the length of stay in city jails, and found that 95 percent of all people held in jail more than two days were black. African Americans were also overwhelmingly charged with petty offenses.

Racial tension in Ferguson has been in the public eye since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager, by a white police officer. The report appears to justify claims of racial discrimination and profiling, as it describes police using force almost exclusively on blacks, and regularly stopping them without probable cause. Black motorists who are pulled over are twice as likely to be searched as white motorists, even though searches of white drivers more often turn up contraband such as drugs.

Racist jokes have also been circulated by Ferguson officials on government email accounts. In one example, a November 2008 email from a city official said that Barack Obama would not be president very long because “what black man holds a steady job for four years?” Another describes black women having abortions as a solution for curbing crime. A third included a cartoon which depicted African-Americans as monkeys.

Information for the report came from hundreds of interviews conducted by federal investigators, who also analyzed race data which is compiled for every police stop. They also reviewed 35,000 pages of police records. One law enforcement officer who has seen the report said that “there are serious problems here that cannot be explained away.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been released.

Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Michael Brown’s family, says that if the DOJ findings are accurate it will confirm what the Browns have believed all along, which is that their son’s death was part of a “systemic pattern of policing” of Ferguson’s black citizens.

The report calls for an acknowledgement by city officials that the tactics of the police department have violated civil rights and caused widespread mistrust. Outgoing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that it is “pretty clear” that “wholesale change” is needed in the Ferguson police department. If DOJ officials are unable to negotiate a settlement with the police department they could bring a lawsuit, which has been done in other parts of the country in recent years.