The bill calls for a year-long resumption of data collection on all traffic stops by the police statewide.

08:18 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 23, 2004

BY BRUCE LANDIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The House Finance Committee yesterday approved a compromise bill to deal with racial profiling by the police after law enforcement and civil-rights groups, which have battled on the issue for at least five years, said they have found common ground.

The legislation has now emerged from committees in both houses of the General Assembly, and the Senate bill is scheduled for a floor vote in the Senate today.

The bill calls for a year-long resumption of data collection on all traffic stops by the police across the state, as well as a number of other measures intended to explore and reduce the discriminatory practice.

Supporters on both sides said the legislation amounts to a major next step following the large-scale study that found widespread differences in the way whites and nonwhites are treated by the police on the highway, both in how often they are stopped and how often their vehicles are searched.

Col. Steven M. Pare, commander of the state police, said the bill would help "get to the bottom of racial profiling," and that he and the state's police chiefs fully support it.

"I don't think this will resolve the issue once and for all," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that made racial profiling a top civil-rights issue here. It has also been a key issue in cities and states across the country. But Brown agreed that it marks a big step.

"Perhaps there were some reasons why there were some disparities in the numbers," said J. David Smith, president of the Rhode Island Association of Police Chiefs and police chief in Narragansett. He said he hoped the renewed statistical study the bills call for will finally resolve questions about racial profiling.

Racial profiling refers to the police stopping and searching vehicles because of the race of their drivers rather than their driving. Minority group members say it goes on all the time, while the police have generally denied the practice existed.

In the previous study, experts from Northeastern University analyzed data on every traffic stop in the state over two years. They reported last July that Rhode Island police disproportionately stopped or searched cars driven by minorities in more than half the state's cities and towns.

With the previous results supporting the years of complaints from minority group members that the police enforce the laws unequally, civil-rights groups have demanded that something be done to end the practice.

The bill passed yesterday, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Almeida, D-Providence, was amended to match its Senate companion, sponsored by Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence. It would provide for another year of data collection about motor vehicle stops, including the race of the driver and other circumstances of the stop.

Supporters say the legislation would make Rhode Island the first state in the country to undertake a follow-up study on racial profiling. Officials say the state is likely to hire Northeastern again for the new study.

Data from the earlier study showed that some Rhode Island police departments searched vehicles driven by nonwhites up to five times as often as those driven by whites.

The Rhode Island Justice Commission would administer the study, replacing the attorney general's office.

The civil-rights groups had sought a new two-year study, but settled for half that among other compromises to get law-enforcement support.

The bills also:

Allow those who think they are victims of racial profiling to sue.

Limit "consent searches," where the motorist agrees to have his car searched when the police have no legal basis for doing so.

Provide for making the data public, while concealing the identity of the officers involved.

Require police supervisors to review each officer's stop-and-search results to ensure compliance, and requires police chiefs to review the data to see whether racial disparities exist and to respond to them if they do.