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Legislation and Litigation

Legislation

UTAH

Utah enacted House Bill 101 on March 26, 2002. This bill requires statewide data collection and allows state drivers’ licenses to include the race of the driver. The Driver License Division will be responsible for monitoring traffic stops and the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice will evaluate the data. In addition, Salt Lake City and St. George are collecting data through voluntary efforts.

H.B. 101, 53rd Leg., Gen. Sess. (Utah 2002), Racial Profiling

Status: Enacted March 26, 2002 ; Effective July 01, 2002
all jurisdictions required to collect data

Scope of Collection: all stops

Restrictions: includes all checks of IDs as well as all traffic and pedestrian stops

Data Collected: race, reason for stop / alleged violation, officer ID

Other Information: Requires law enforcement agencies to adopt policies, on or before January 1, 2003, that prohibit racial profiling. Provides for race information to be included on the driver license application and the state identification card application. Requires the Department of Public Safety to establish a protected database to monitor traffic and pedestrian stops by peace officers and provides the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice access to the information for evaluation. The Driver License Division will collect data, and the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice will evaluate the data.

Related Articles:

Journal Articles and Law Reviews:

Racial and Ethnic Fairness: Report on the State of the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System
Utah Judicial Council’s Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Legal System
Commission on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System

What's New:

Salt Lake City, UT: Without better data, quantifying racial profiling will fail
Matt Canham
Utah Legislator to Introduce Racial Profiling Bill
American Civil Liberties Union

Contact Information:

Representative Duane Bourdeaux
870 N. Cornell St.
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
801-596-9081
dbourdea@le.state.ut.us

Commission on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Criminal Juvenile Justice System
101 State Capital
Salt Lake City, UT 84114
http://www.utcourts.gov

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.