BLACK WOMEN MOST LIKELY TARGETS OF AIRPORT SEARCHES

WASHINGTON -- African-American women returning from abroad are much more
likely than other airline passengers to be picked out by customs inspectors
for strip searches and X-rays, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office
investigation to be released Monday.

The disproportionate treatment of black women was "not consistent" with the
rates at which the searches turned up illegal drugs or other smuggled
contraband, the GAO concluded after an analysis of records covering all U.S.
Customs searches of airline passengers during a two-year period.

Passengers stopped for a search typically are simply given a quick pat down,
but African-American women were by far the demographic group most likely to
be subjected to the more intrusive strip searches. In 1998, 11 percent of
black women passengers who were chosen for searches were strip-searched
versus 6 percent of all U.S. citizens for which information on race and
gender were available.

Strip searches of African-American women did turn up smuggled goods more
often than they did for passengers overall, with 28 percent of the searches
yielding contraband, versus 22 percent among all U.S. citizens.

But the strip searches of black women were not as likely to uncover
contraband as were strip searches of passengers in other demographic groups,
who were ordered to undergo the searches less often, the GAO reported.

Among U.S. citizens, searches of black men, Hispanic men and Hispanic women
all were more likely to uncover smuggled goods. But each of those
demographic groups were strip-searched much less often than were black
women.

An examination of the small fraction of returning citizens, less than 200
per year, taken into custody for X-ray exams to check for items concealed
within their digestive systems showed a more pronounced disparity.

A statistical analysis by the GAO found black women were much more likely
than white women to be required to undergo the procedure, but X-rays on
white women found contraband twice as often as when the tests were performed
on black women.

The findings by Congress' investigative arm follow complaints from groups of
African-American women in several major cities that they are unfairly
singled out for intensive searches. Those complaints have spurred at least a
dozen lawsuits, including a suit on behalf of 100 black women who claim
inspectors at Chicago's O'Hare Airport were biased in ordering them
strip-searched.

"There was a discriminatory policy taking place. And this GAO report
documents it," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who requested the study. "The
fact is women of color were the first to be strip-searched. ... And it can't
be justified."

Dennis Murphy, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service, did not dispute the
GAO's statistical findings, which covered searches conducted in 1997 and
1998. But he said the Customs Service never had a policy of deliberate
discrimination and that the agency's supervisory procedures since have been
tightened to guard against bias in selecting passengers for searches.

Since last May, the Customs Service has required a supervisor to approve all
searches of airline passengers, except immediate pat-downs when an inspector
suspects the passenger is carrying a weapon.

"I'm not going to draw any conclusion on what may have been in the minds of
an individual inspector," Murphy said. But, he added, "One of the biggest
problems is it was left up to the individual inspector to make the decision.
And management wasn't involved in the decision to search."

In addition to addressing specific complaints about customs inspections, the
GAO report provides an early glimpse at the kind of results that could come
from data now being gathered to address longstanding complaints that
law-enforcement officers rely on racial and gender stereotypes.

President Clinton last summer ordered all federal law-enforcement agencies
to begin documenting the race and gender of people they arrest or detain, so
the data can be analyzed to check whether certain groups are being targeted.
Legislation pending in Congress and the Illinois legislature also would
encourage police departments to gather data on disparities in traffic stops.

The issue of "racial profiling" is receiving renewed attention in the wake
of a settlement of a lawsuit alleging New Jersey state troopers targeted
black and Hispanic motorists for traffic stops. Similar allegations have
been made locally in lawsuits against the Illinois State Police, Mt.
Prospect police and Highland Park police.

The GAO investigation of the U.S. Customs Service examined records of the
102,000 airline passengers selected for searches.

The examination checked only for disparities in the way passengers were
treated once they were stopped.

The GAO acknowledged that a weakness in its analysis is that the records did
not include all data relevant to an inspector's decision to search a
passenger.

Its study also turned up other peculiar disparities.

For minority passengers, customs inspectors were about three times more
likely to order women strip-searched as they were men of the same race,
according to analysis that controlled for other factors reported on search
records.

In fact, men in every minority group were less likely to be subjected to
body searches than white passengers. By contrast, among whites, women and
men were strip-searched at the same rate.

U.S. Customs Service policies require that body searches of passengers be
conducted by inspectors of the same sex, Murphy said.

Also, when Asian-Americans were stopped for a search, Customs inspectors
rarely asked them to undergo strip searches or X-rays. Only 1 percent of
Asian-American men were strip-searched and 3 percent of Asian-American
women.

Among U.S. citizens, blacks and Hispanics of both sexes were much more
likely to be ordered to undergo an X-ray exam, according to the GAO. One
percent of whites were ordered to undergo the tests versus 4 percent of
blacks and 2 percent of Hispanics

Durbin said he intends to introduce legislation that would prohibit customs
inspectors from considering race, religion, gender, national origin or
sexual orientation as factors in evaluating passengers for searches or
detention. Customs inspectors also would be required to document their
reasons for searching or detaining a passenger.