RACIAL PROFILING

Finally, some officers have acknowledged that they do stop drivers
because of their race.

Their admissions sparked a fiery national debate on stereotypes and
the law. Lawmakers nationwide are scrambling to pass legislation
requiring law-enforcement agencies to record information on all
traffic stops. That's fine as far as it goes, but legislation can't
change the racial attitudes at the heart of this practice.

Every day, many blacks and Hispanics are stopped, searched and questioned
because they fit the stereotypical image of a drug trafficker, car thief
or some other criminal. Even the Office of National Drug Control Policy
uses racial profiles that clearly state which groups it believes sell
drugs in different cities. For example, in San Antonio: "Heroin dealers
are mostly Hispanic males" and "young African Americans smoke crack in a
marijuana cigarette," according to the office's Web site.

Over the years, blacks and Hispanics related many an anecdote on
"pretext stops"-when an officer stops someone for an alleged traffic
violation to see ivhether they are involved in some other criminal
activity. There have also been many denials by law-enforcement
agencies and officers. But the absence~ of any official statistics has
made it difficult to track the prevalence of racial profiling.

In Texas, for example, the Department of Public Safety does not record
any information on stops made by police. It does, though, keep a
record of all citations and arrests, with the corresponding
violationtype, race, gander and dote of birth. However, these records
are not easily accessible. In response to an American-Statesman
request for arrest and citation data for the past two years,
categorized by race, violation type, gender and age, the DPS estimated
that it would take several weeks and cost $500-$1,000 to extract that
information from the database. At DPS, Maj. Ricky Smith, head of the
Traffic Law Enforcement Information Services Division, explained that
the agency would have to bring in a contractor to write custom
computer scripts for extracting such information.

In the wake of several incidents nationwide, President Clinton issued
an executive order last month. He called for federal law-enforcement
agencies to collect and make public data on the race, ethnicity, age
and gender of all people they stop or arrest, and encouraged state
agencies do the same.

Similar bills have been introduced in several state legislatures and
in Congress. In Texas, state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houson, sought
to attach an amendment to the bill that would keep DPS operating. She
wanted DPS to record, collect, provide and analyze information on all
traffic stops, searches and arrests within the state. The DPS bill
passed, but Thompson's amendment failed.

Calling for more concrete assurances by DPS, state Rep. Domingo
Garcia, Dem-Dallas, introduced an amendment to the same bill to
prohibit DPS officers from using racial profiling. That amendment
passed. "I want them to issue clear policy guidelines [to all
officers] that racial profiling will not be used in any form," he said.

Such guidelines might not be worth much when law-enforcement agencies
deny the use of racial profiling. If there were ways to monitor how
the guidelines were implemented, then the policy guidelines might be
helpful.

Clearly, gathering information is an essential first step toward
rectifying this situation, but statistics alone are not the answer.
Worthy solutions cannot be found without honest discussion.

Recently, officers in police departments around the nation have
admitted that they use racial profiles. In a June 26 story in The New
York Times Magazine, Deputy Bob Harris of the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department said, "Racial profiling is a tool we use, and
don't let anyone say otherwise. Like up in the [San Fernando] valley,
I knew who all the crack sellers were-they look like Hispanics who
should be cutting your lawn."

But until recently, most law-enforcement authorities have denied using
racial profiles claiming that, in stopping more black and Hispanic
motorists, they are only following the trends reflected in national
crime statistics-more blacks and Hispanics, as compared to whites, are
found guilty of committing drug-related offenses, and other crimes
such as car theft.

Garcia disagrees with that explanation: "If you're only targeting
minorities, that's all youtre going to catch," he said. "There are
plenty of Anglo drug dealers who are not on the DPS' radar screen."

Race does, and should, play a part in criminal identification. But the
practice of racial profiling makes a big leap of logic from more
blacks and Hispanics are found guilty of committing certain crimes to
most blacks and Hispanics commit these crimes.

It is time law-enforcers and law-abiders alike ask themselves a few
painful questions. Do those oft-cited crime statistics give officers
cause to stop any black or Hispanic person driving down a highway? Or
cause to ask any African American or Hispanic driving an expensive car
for proof of ownership? Or cause to stop any black or Latino passing
through a wealthy neighborhood and ask them why they are there?

The answer should be "no."

Neither law-enforcement agencies nor the public benefit from a system
that victimizes law-abiding citizens and erodes public confidence. Law
enforcement officials need to make a good-faith effort, then, at
gathering the information. If, as they claim, racial profiling is not
a widespread proctice, the data will show that. And the public's
confidence will be strengthened.