ACLU and CA Civil Rights Groups Call for Major Police Reforms in Sacramento

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO-Citing data from a report on racial profiling released today by the Sacramento Police Department, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and a number of civil rights groups called for major policy changes in the way minority motorists are treated by police.

The groups said the report reveals that dramatic disparities still exist in how African American and Latino motorists are treated when compared with white motorists and also pointed to significant underreporting of stops and searches by Sacramento police officers.

“When the Sacramento Police Department began data collection, it showed leadership, however, the police must take the next step and address the problem of racial profiling with a real solution,” said Mark Schlosberg, Police Practices Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California, which joined the Sacramento NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and others in calling for changes.

“Despite months of discussions and numerous recommendations from community members, this year’s report is nearly identical to last year’s,” he added. “But instead of confronting the problem, the author of the report, Professor Howard Greenwald, continues to explain away dramatic disparities in how African Americans and Latinos are treated.”

In his report, Greenwald, a professor at the University of Southern California, includes data that shows the following:

• African Americans are stopped at over twice their representation in the population for non-hazardous violations (34.6 percent compared with 14.3 percent). These are violations where officers have the most discretion.
• African Americans are stopped at rates greater than their representation in the population in every census track in the city except one: track 7.
• African Americans are 2.2 times as likely and Latinos are twice as likely to be searched following a traffic stop as white motorists.
• African Americans and Latinos are twice as likely to be detained for 30 minutes or longer, with one out of every 10 stops of African American and Latino motorists resulting in a detention of 30 minutes or more.
• Even in situations where no search is conducted, African Americans and Latinos are still significantly more likely than white motorists to be subjected to extended detentions.
• Despite these dramatic disparities, Sacramento police officers are no more likely to find contraband as a result of searching African Americans and Latinos.
• Sacramento Police Officers in large numbers did not fill out data collection forms as required by departmental policy and the City Council. Report indicates that underreporting was as high as 50 percent.

“We disagree with the conclusions of the report,” said Francisco Estrada of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “We don’t believe that the Sacramento police department is a racist police force or that rogue cops are running around, but the data does show that there is a problem and if we just stick our heads in the sand the problem won’t go away.”

In efforts to address racial profiling, the civil rights organizations are urging the Sacramento City Council to adopt the following policy changes:

1. Adopt a clear policy prohibiting racial profiling. The City Council should require the Department to adopt a new policy clearly prohibiting racial profiling. This policy should be modeled on language used by the U.S. Department of Justice in its consent decrees with Los Angeles and the New Jersey State Police and used in the POST training materials. The policy should make it clear that Sacramento police officers should not use race (to any extent or degree) in determining who to stop, search, interrogate, detain, or arrest “unless race was provided as a specific descriptor of a specific person in a specific crime.” The policy should also make it clear that violations of this policy will lead to disciplinary actions.
2. Adopt clear audit mechanisms and consequences for failure to collect data. The gross underreporting of stops and searches by Sacramento police officers is truly disturbing and unacceptable. Failure to accurately report data undermines the entire program and hampers efforts to effectively address racial profiling. The City Council should therefore require the department to adopt strict audit mechanisms to ensure accurate data collection, require quarterly reporting of the results of such audits, and discipline officers who fail to report stops and searches.
3. Extend data collection program. Data collection continues to serve an important function. It is essential that collection continue so that trends can be tracked over time and so that the effects of policy changes can be measured. The data collection program should therefore be made permanent. Data collection should also be expanded to include stops and searches of pedestrians and bicyclists.
4. Do not accept the conclusions of the report. The last report by Professor Greenwald caused frustration in the community and the Department’s decision to laud the report undermined police-community relations. The Department and the City Council should therefore not accept the findings of the report, should acknowledge that the disparities in the data are disturbing, and should pledge to continue to work towards ending racial profiling.

A summary of the report follows:

Summary of Sacramento Data

Last year, USC Professor Howard Greenwald issued a report analyzing the first year of traffic stop data collected by the Sacramento Police Department. The data collection effort is aimed at determining the extent to which racial profiling is a problem in the Sacramento Police Department (“SPD”) and tracking changes over time. While the first year’s worth of data showed dramatic disparities in how African American and Latino motorists were treated by SPD, the report sought to explain away these disparities rather than confront the problem they suggested. This was both disturbing and frustrating to many in the community and on the City Council and lead to the creation of a Community Advisory Committee to assist in the data analysis. Unfortunately, despite months of discussions and numerous recommendations from community members, this year’s analysis is nearly identical to last year’s. Professor Greenwald continues to explain away dramatic disparities in how African Americans and Latinos are treated – disparities that suggest a very real problem that must be addressed with real policy solutions.

WHAT THE DATA SHOWS

The data this year, like last year, shows dramatic disparities in how African American and Latino motorists are treated when compared with white motorists as well as significant underreporting of stops and searches by SPD officers. The data shows the following:

• African Americans are stopped at over twice their representation in the population for non-hazardous violations – violations where officers have the most discretion (34.6% compared with 14.3%).
• African Americans are stopped at rates greater than their representation in the population in every census track in the city except one – track 7.
• African Americans are 2.2 times as likely and Latinos are twice as likely to be searched following a traffic stop as white motorists.
• African Americans and Latinos are twice as likely to be detained for 30 minutes or longer with one out of every 10 stops of African American and Latino motorists resulting in a detention of 30 or more minutes.
• Even in situations where no search is conducted, African Americans and Latinos are still significantly more likely than white motorists to be subjected to extended detentions.
• Despite these dramatic disparities, Sacramento police officers are no more likely to find contraband as a result of searching African Americans and Latinos.
• Sacramento Police Officers in large numbers did not fill out data collection forms as required by departmental policy and the City Council. Report indicates that underreporting was as high as 50%.

THE REPORT IS NOT REFLECTIVE OF COMMUNITY INPUT

Despite months of meetings and discussions – and the charge that the committee was designed to provide input into the report – significant community recommendations have not been incorporated into the report. Rather, the report seeks to explain away dramatic disparities in the same manner as last year’s report did. Recommendations made by a majority of community members but rejected by Professor Greenwald include:

• The researcher should make a preliminary conclusion that racial profiling is a problem based on large disparities in most pieces of data.
• The researcher should not use the reported crime rate as the baseline to which the stop numbers are compared, but rather a more representative benchmark such as population data or traffic flow.
• The researcher should not rely on the race of the officer or cameras in cars to determine racial profiling is not a problem – race is used improperly both consciously and unconsciously and officers of all races can engage in the improper use of race.

All of these recommendations were made by a majority of community members and were not accepted in Greenwald’s report. Additionally, while there is a “community definition” in the report, the report analyzes it in such a way as to render it meaningless, concluding that it is too vague to provide any guidance.

THE REPORT IS BIASED

Not only does the report fail to incorporate community input, but it also reflects a clear bias. There are numerous instances where this bias is reflected – this summary will simply highlight a few.

• The report makes conclusions while ignoring the data. The report repeatedly states that high rates of African Americans on probation and parole explain away the stop and search disparities. This, despite the data demonstrating that even accounting for probation and parole, African Americans and Latinos are still between two and two and a half times more likely to be searched than white motorists.
• In the report, Greenwald concludes that there is not evidence that Sacramento police officers stop drivers only because they are African American or due to their race alone. Racial profiling, however, goes beyond the problem of officers relying solely on race, but occurs whenever an officer uses race as a reason for initiating law enforcement action in the absence of a specific suspect description. By playing fast and loose with language, Greenwald’s conclusions frame the profiling issue in a way that is inconsistent with the community definition, constitutional standards, and the training Sacramento officers will be receiving.
• In the section on the meaning of racial profiling, Greenwald discusses what he terms the “more recent thinking” on profiling and concludes that race should be used when “appropriate” – a vague standard that would allow a lot of conduct that is, in fact, racial profiling. All the while, Greenwald ignores the most recent and most relevant material on this issue – the POST training materials that every officer in the state will receive. That material states clearly that “the 14th Amendment is also violated when law enforcement officers use a person’s race as a factor informing suspicion on an individual, unless race was provided as a specific descriptor of a specific person in a specific crime.” This is a much clearer standard that should have been used in the analysis and should be incorporated into departmental policy.
• Greenwald’s bias is also clear in his conclusion. He writes that “several facts argue against racial profiling to any significant degree.” All racial profiling, however, is “significant.” Whether it is the frustration of being pulled over for seemingly no reason, whether it is the embarrassment of having to stand at the side of the road during an extended detention, whether it is the humiliation of being subjected to a fruitless search based, in part, on race, all racial profiling is of consequence and should be taken seriously. A conclusion that there is not “significant” racial profiling implies that there is some acceptable level of profiling — something that should not be accepted anywhere, but particularly not in Sacramento.

DATA REQUIRES POLICY RESPONSE

The dramatic disparities in how African American and Latino motorists were treated when compared with whites demands a strong policy response. Racial profiling is a reflection of a problem that is not unique to the police department. Racial biases exist throughout society and must continually be addressed at every level. In the past, the City Council and Chief Venegas have shown leadership in addressing the issue of racial profiling. Additional changes are needed, however, in departmental policy. The following steps should be taken:

1. Adopt a clear policy prohibiting racial profiling. The City Council should require the Department to adopt a new policy clearly prohibiting racial profiling. This policy should be modeled on language used by the U.S. Department of Justice in its consent decrees with Los Angeles and the New Jersey State Police and used in the POST training materials. The policy should make it clear that Sacramento Police Officers should not use race (to any extent or degree) in determining who to stop, search, interrogate, detain, or arrest “unless race was provided as a specific descriptor of a specific person in a specific crime.” The policy should also make it clear that violations of this policy will lead to discipline.
2. Adopt clear audit mechanisms and consequences for failure to collect data. The gross underreporting of stops and searches by Sacramento police officers is truly disturbing and unacceptable. Failure to accurately report data undermines the entire program and hampers efforts to effectively address racial profiling. The City Council should therefore require the department to adopt strict audit mechanisms to ensure accurate data collection, require quarterly reporting of the results of such audits, and discipline officers who fail to report stops and searches.
3. Extend data collection program. Data collection continues to serve an important function. It is essential that collection continue so that trends can be tracked over time and so that the effects of policy changes can be measured. The data collection program should therefore be made permanent. Data collection should also be expanded to include stops and searches of pedestrians and bicyclists.
4. Do not accept the conclusions of the report. The last report by Greenwald caused frustration in the community and the Department’s decision to laud the report undermined police/community relations. The Department and the City Council should therefore not accept the findings of the report, should acknowledge that the disparities in the data are disturbing, and should pledge to continue to work towards ending racial profiling.

Submitted by the following members of the committee:

Joe Debbs
Alfred Brown, Sr.
Mark Schlosberg
Alex Eng
Mike Mireles
John Floyd
Francisco Estrada
Arnold Samuel
David De Luz
Wendell Echols
(partial list)