ACLU/NAACP/LULAC Standards for a Detailed Racial Profiling Policy

All local law enforcement agencies must have a “detailed written policy” prohibiting racial profiling, and this policy must be in place by Jan. 1, 2002. That means that agencies are now drafting those policies. Under the statute, the detailed written policy must prohibit specific acts of racial profiling, specify officer discipline, create a data collection and reporting process, enable citizen complaints, and ensure public education about the complaint process.

The detailed written policy on racial profiling mandated for every law enforcement agency in the state should at a minimum contain the following provisions:

1. A clear definition of specific acts constituting racial profiling such as:

¨ Stopping a driver or pedestrian when looking for a suspect if the only commonality between the suspect and the civilian is their race/ethnicity. Ethnicity may not be used in whole or in part as a reason for a stop, search, or arrest unless it is a specific factor that is part of the actual description of a specific suspect for whom police officers are searching.

¨ Picking out people from among similarly situated individuals based in whole or in part on their race/ethnicity. For example, a driver doing 70 in a stream of traffic where most other drivers are also doing 70, should not be picked out for a speeding ticket based on his or her race/ethnicity, or even race/ethnicity in combination with make/model/age of vehicle or similar generic factors.

¨ Stopping a driver where there is no traffic violation in order to get a look inside the car partially or wholly because of the driver’s race/ethnicity.

2. A complaint process with access to a civilian office to file the complaint, readable and accessible forms in the language of the complainant, access to any existing video/audio tape of the stop, and a right to appeal the determination that the complaint is “not sustained” to an independent body.

3. A public education campaign about the complaint process that provides people a clear statement of a complainant’s rights, including the right to file by mail, the right to bring another person in to witness and assist any interview, the right to record any interrogation, the right not to be interrogated about items outside the scope of the incident complained about, the right to bring forward witnesses or evidence of racial profiling if any.

4. Appropriate officer discipline to include corrective actions that the department categorizes as “disciplinary actions”—i.e., suspension (one day, three days, five days etc), demotion, or termination.

5. Collection of data to include every traffic or pedestrian stop (not just stops that result in a citation), and to include the gender of the person stopped. While the law mandates only data related to traffic stops that result in a citation in the first year, an effective and serious racial profiling policy should record all stops and all searches, whether or not they lead to a ticket or arrest.

6. Annual reports of racial profiling data should be readable and include information on complaints filed, and a geographic analysis of the data on stops and searches.

7. Standards for documenting information collected on video or audio tape (if used) and standards for reviewing that documentation for compliance with the rest of the agency’s racial profiling policy.