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Legislation and Litigation

Legislation

ARIZONA

Arizona’s Attorney General issued a “Declaration…Condemning Racial Profiling” on Dec. 19, 2000. It asks each department to make a policy by June, 2001. However, it does not require any data collection. It acknowledges that choosing not implement a racial profiling policy is an acceptable decision.

As reported by news sources, Tucson is the only department currently collecting data. Tucson police officers only collect data when issuing a citation or when a person is investigated through the computer. Officers are not required to collect data when they stop people and do not cite them. Therefore the policy does not address potential pretextual stops.

In Bisbee, a situation has developed that shows that business may be better at making changes than the government. Bisbee is a border town that seized the vehicles of illegal border-crossers and sold them, which was very lucrative and led to targeting Hispanic drivers. The city council passed a no-profiling resolution. Nothing happened for three months, until an insurance company stated that they would not insure against a racial profiling suit and the town quickly stopped seizing cars.

H.B. 2516, 46th Leg., 1st Reg. Sess. (Ariz. 2003), An Act...Amending Title 13, Chapter 37, Arizona Revised Statutes, by adding section 13-3708; Relating to Racial Profiling

Status: Unenacted February 19, 2003

Other Information: This piece of legislation prohibits the use of race by an officer as the basis for stopping a motorist. It makes this act of "racial profiling" a class 3 felony.

H.B. 2623, 45th Leg., 2nd Reg. Sess. (Ariz. 2002), An Act...Amending Title 41, Chapter 9, Arizona Revised Statutes...; Relating to Racial Profiling

Status: Unenacted February 28, 2002
all jurisdictions required to collect data

Scope of Collection: all stops

Data Collection Dates: January 01, 2003

Data Collected: name, age, race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, reason for stop / alleged violation, date, time, location, duration of stop, license plate number, state where car is registered, officer ID, warning given, citation given, arrest made, personal search conducted, search of vehicle conducted, type of search, contraband found, items seized for forfeiture, authority for search

Other Information: This piece of legislation prohibits racial profiling and mandates the training of peace officers to further this injunction. It also calls for the statewide collection of traffic stop data by all police agencies within the state of Arizona. Furthermore, it directs the Public Safety department to begin a statewide public awareness campaign concerning racial profiling and an individual's rights.

ANALYSIS OF RACIAL DISPARITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT'S STOP, QUESTION, AND FRISK PRACTICES

RAND Corporation

In 2006, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) stopped a half-million pedestrians for suspected criminal involvement. Raw statistics for these encounters suggest large racial disparities — 89 percent of the stops involved nonwhites. Do these statistics point to racial bias in police officers’ decisions to stop particular pedestrians? Do they indicate that officers are particularly intrusive when stopping nonwhites? The NYPD asked the RAND Center on Quality Policing (CQP) to help it understand this issue and identify recommendations for addressing potential problems. CQP researchers analyzed data on all street encounters between NYPD officers and pedestrians in 2006. They compared the racial distribution of stops to external benchmarks, attempts to construct what the racial distribution of the stopped pedestrians would have been if officers’ stop decisions had been racially unbiased. Then they compared each officer’s stopping patterns with an internal benchmark constructed from stops in similar circumstances made by other officers. Finally, they examined stop outcomes, assessing whether stopped white and nonwhite suspects have different rates of frisk, search, use of force, and arrest. They found small racial differences in these rates and make communication, recordkeeping, and training recommendations to the NYPD for improving police-pedestrian interactions.

FLORIDA: JACKSONVILLE POLICE RECEIVE NO RACIAL PROFILING COMPLAINTS IN ’08

The Jacksonville Police Department presented its annual Racial Profiling Report which covers Calendar Year 2008 and showed that JPD received no formal reports of racial profiling. It also confirmed that local police are conducting traffic stops using legal criteria and not race as their motivation for enforcement action. Currently, the Texas Racial Profiling Law requires that police departments collect data pertaining to traffic stops, pedestrian stops, searches conducted and citations issued.

TEXAS: BELLAIRE MAYOR TO INVESTIGATE RACIAL PROFILING ALLEGATIONS

The mayor of Bellaire responded publicly for the first time to allegations of racial profiling due to an incident of mistaken identity. Officers will now be required to participate in additional cultural sensitivity training. The city is also hiring an independent state consultant to analyze traffic stop data for 2008 and look for incidents of racial profiling. The mayor also promised to release the results of the district attorney's investigation publicly, once it is completed.

CALIFORNIA: TORRANCE POLICE PROFILING SUIT IS DEFEATED

A woman who claimed she was wrongly arrested by Torrance police because of her race has lost her federal lawsuit against the city, a former chief and two officers. Sara Plowden, who lived in Gardena when she filed the civil rights lawsuit in January 2006, claimed she was subjected to a "driving while black" arrest early on Nov. 23, 2003. She claimed the officers physically accosted her and that city officials and former Police Chief James Herren allowed "an atmosphere of lawlessness, abuse and misconduct" to fester in the department.

ARKANSAS: ARIZONA DPS TIGHTENS SEARCH RULES TO AVOID PROFILING

The Arizona Department of Public Safety, in moves intended to prevent and detect racial profiling, is making internal changes that include requiring Highway Patrol officers to document why they search vehicles they stop. Other changes announced by Gov. Janet Napolitano's office include requiring officers to obtain a motorist's consent for a search to get the driver's signature or to use video or audio to record the driver giving permission verbally.

UTAH: UTAH HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICER ACCUSED OF RACIAL PROFILING

Sherida Felders, a black grandmother, alleges a Utah Highway Patrol officer had no reason to believe her Jeep Commander contained illegal substances, but called in a drug-sniffing dog after stopping her for speeding Felders has filed a suit accusing the trooper of conducting an illegal search of her vehicle for drugs based on racial profiling.