Crime not Skin: Ending Racial Profiling (S. 1038)

What is S. 1038?

(Updated June 8, 2018)

This bill aims to put an end to all practices of racial profiling by law enforcement officials and agencies across the country. S. 1038 would grant victims of racial profiling the right to have their concerns taken up in court by declaratory or injunctive relief.

For those of you who don't know, racial profiling, as defined by the U.S. Department of Justice, is:

"Any police-initiated action that relies on the race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than the behavior of an individual or information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been identified as being, or having been, engaged in criminal activity."

S. 1038 would require local and state law enforcement agencies to prove that they have adequate policies and practices for eliminating racial profiling in place. It would also require that those same law enforcement agencies remove any and all encouragement of racial profiling from their policies.  This bill specifically targets  law enforcement agencies that apply for grants from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program and the Cops on the Beat Program.

Lastly, this bill directs the U.S. Attorney General to set the ground rules for the collection of data on racial profiling, and to award grants to fund these efforts.

Argument in favor

Would mandate that law enforcement officers end the practice of detaining or stopping individuals based on their race instead of their behavior.

Argument opposed

Creates vague and burdensome regulations that would be impossible to identify, implement, or enforce at the federal level.

Impact

People of color, law enforcement officers and agencies, and the Attorney General.

Cost of S. 1038

There is no cost estimate at the current time.

Additional Info

In Depth:

One of the most highly cited forms of racial profiling is New York City's "stop and frisk" policy— a practice used by the NYC Police Department where officers would stop, question, and frisk, thousands of pedestrians every year, looking for weapons and other contraband. In 2011, NYC officers applied this policy to people in NYC 685,724 times. Eighty-seven percent of those searches involved blacks or Latinos.

It's not just New York — studies conducted by the National Institute of Justice have revealed that people of color across the country are stopped by police officers more frequently than white motorists at traffic stops. Among people of color, racial profiling is considered widespread: 70 percent of African Americans say members of their race were treated less fairly than whites in typical interactions with police.

Media:

Sponsoring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) Press Release

The Hill

The American Civil Liberties Union

NAACP

(Photo Credit: Washington Times)