RACIAL PROFILING IS BAD POLICING

Two New Jersey state troopers who, in April 1998, fired 11 bullets
into a van carrying four unarmed, innocent African-American and Latino
students (wounding three) and ignited a national firestorm about
racial profiling, were sentenced for their crimes last week.

They were each fined $280 and agreed to resign from the state
police.

Both men, John Hogan, 32, and James Kenna, 31, had been charged with
aggravated assault and Kenna faced a charge of attempted murder. The
incident took place on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Their outrageously lenient sentence infuriated activists who had
rallied around the case as a particularly egregious example of racial
profiling--a problem that many African-Americans have long referred to
as being targeted for "driving while black." The Jersey turnpike has
long been infamous for this problem.

The light penalty was part of a deal with a special prosecutor that
allowed the two white former cops to be spared jail time or even
probation if they pleaded guilty to official misconduct and
obstructing justice. In prepared statements, the troopers testified
that they stopped the van because of its occupants' complexions,
admitting for the first time what activists had long charged.

The two testified that these illegal stops were a common practice for
them and other troopers because their supervisors trained them to
single out dark-skinned motorists as the most likely drug couriers.

They said troopers typically lied about the racial identity of drivers
they stopped to conceal practices of biased policing. "No one at the
station, including supervisors, seemed to be concerned when a minority
arrestee was brought to the station after the radio call had
identified that driver as white," Hogan testified.

The troopers also disclosed they were coached by dozens of troopers to
"falsify and embellish" accounts of the incident to justify their
actions and impede the investigation.

Although Hogan and Kenna walked and none of the unnamed supervisors
and troopers they implicated were charged with anything, the
controversy elevated racial profiling to a national issue. What's
more, the two troopers' admissions vindicated those who long have
claimed that New Jersey state police unfairly target black and brown
drivers.

Their testimonies also revealed the deeply rooted assumptions that
nourish the practice of racial profiling nationwide--assumptions that
African-Americans and Latino motorists are the most likely suspects.

Many police officials justify racial profiling as "rational policing";
if blacks and Latinos are convicted of committing a disproportionate
number of crimes, they should be monitored disproportionately. Those
disparities spell out the racial demographics of crime, they argue,
and police agencies must respond accordingly.

Thankfully, research finally is emerging that debunks those
assumptions.

Some of that new research derives from a study of the New Jersey state
police mandated by the federal government following the 1998 incident.
Although the study revealed, distressingly, that turnpike troopers
continue the practice of racial profiling--even after a federal
rebuke--it also concluded that the practice amounted to "bad law
enforcement."

Former state Atty. Gen. James Farmer, who supervised the study, said
data collected during 2000 showed that white drivers, when searched,
were much more likely to be carrying contraband than African-Americans
or Latinos. Those findings directly refute the arguments of rational-
policing advocates.

A new book titled "Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot
Work," by David A. Harris, expands the study to the national level.
Harris, a law professor at the University of Toledo, conducted years
of research and reveals quite convincingly that racial profiling
actually makes things worse.

Harris' book, for the first time, compared all of the available data
on racial profiling with relevant crime statistics and makes clear
that the "hit rate"--the rate at which police actually find contraband
on people they stop in racial profiling--is actually lower for blacks
than for whites; the hit rate for Latinos is much lower than for either.

Racial profiling never made social sense. Harris' book makes clear
that it doesn't make law enforcement sense either.