TAKING AIM AT PROFILING

LAWMAKERS HAVE made it clear that Maryland is serious about eliminating the
practice of racial profiling. The state Senate unanimously passed a bill,
earlier approved by the House, that will require police departments across
the state to adopt policies against race-based traffic stops. The new law
also requires that officers record whom they stop and why, providing data
that can be used to make sure minorities are not being unfairly targeted.
These are meaningful and welcome steps forward.

Racial profiling has been under scrutiny in Maryland for years. In 1995 the
state settled a lawsuit over alleged profiling by agreeing to stop using
race as a factor in traffic stops, but two years later a federal judge
found a pattern of discrimination in traffic stops along I-95 in
northeastern Maryland. In 1996 the Montgomery County NAACP sparked a
lengthy Justice Department investigation when it alleged that Montgomery
police used excessive force against minorities and used racial profiling in
traffic stops. That inquiry found no civil rights violations but resulted
in an agreement under which Montgomery police are now collecting the kind
of traffic stop data that the new bill will require statewide.

The goal here is simple and unassailable. Every driver must be able to
travel the public roads without fear of being singled out on the basis of
race. This new law gives Maryland's citizens the assurance that lawmakers
and law enforcers share that goal -- and a way to hold them to it.