PROVIDENCE — Police chiefs in Rhode Island and civil-rights groups are facing off in a tense battle over legislation that would curtail some policing methods in an effort to combat racial profiling.

The Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and members of the Rhode Island Civil Rights Roundtable say local police departments haven’t done enough to prevent racial profiling in traffic stops.

“You have years of statistics showing there is a concern,” said Michael Evora, executive director of the Rhode Island Commission of Human Rights. “You can’t just keep diagnosing. You have to address the problem.”

For years, local police chiefs and civil-rights activists have worked together on efforts to combat racial profiling. But in January, civil-rights leaders decided on their own to pursue legislation.

Among its key points, the bill would ban “pretext” traffic stops, forbid the police from searching juveniles without consent and ban the police from asking people about their immigration status except in extremely limited circumstances. The bill also would prevent the police from asking for passengers’ identification during routine traffic stops.

The Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association says many of the bill’s measures would severely handicap police officers from properly doing their jobs. After weeks of trying to negotiate a compromise, the association has given up, calling the bill “a deal-breaker.”

The chiefs also say the bill flies in the face of federal law and rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, and upsets the delicate balance between civil rights and public safety.

“We’re not walking away from the table. We realize there’s a tremendous amount of sensitivity around minority [issues],” said Warwick Police Chief Stephen McCartney, vice president of the state Association of Police Chiefs. “But there has to be some respect for what police officers do and the difficulty of their job.”

The bill drew passionate testimony from both sides at a hearing Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee. On one side were the police chiefs, united in saying the bill would tie the hands of police officers. On the other were the civil-rights activists, united in saying the legislation was needed to end racial profiling.

THE DEBATE OVER racial profiling stems from two statewide traffic-stop studies, mandated by the General Assembly and conducted by the Institute of Race and Justice at Northeastern University, to investigate whether the police stopped and searched minorities at a higher rate than white drivers.

Both studies concluded that minorities were stopped more frequently than white motorists and that non-white drivers were twice as likely to be searched as white motorists. The study, however, also found that white drivers had a higher incidence of carrying contraband. The report cautioned that the disparities could be attributed to a number of factors besides bias, such as changes in demographics, police training, crime control or traffic-safety issues.

Last year, researchers at Northeastern reported that police departments had made some progress in reducing the disparities, and they recommended that all departments develop a system for collecting traffic stop information to help monitor enforcement.

The police chiefs association says it has been working on improving training and policies for traffic stops, and is seeking to establish an electronic system that monitors traffic stops in all police departments. The association is pushing counter legislation that would create a permanent system for monitoring traffic stops, a measure that is tied to obtaining federal money from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to pay for training and laptop computers for the system.

But ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown says the issue isn’t about collecting more data, but about getting the police to do something with the data they have. Brown said that it was evident that racial profiling was continuing: “You don’t have to go far in the minority community to hear their stories.”

The Civil Rights Roundtable, a collection of civil-rights organizations, drew up the legislation before the General Assembly. The bill was submitted by Rep. Joseph Almeida, D-Providence, in mid-January, soon after the state ACLU released a report that recommended specific legislation — which is the basis of the bill.

The ACLU report, which looked at the Northeastern University data, was critical of the police and cited controversial incidents: a state police stop of a van for a minor traffic violation in Richmond that found 14 Guatemalan nationals, who were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and a Coventry police search of Central Falls high school athletes after Coventry students wrongly accused them of stealing.

The Civil Rights Roundtable bill also calls for police departments to keep quarterly reports on actions taken in response to racial disparities, as well as annual reports describing actions taken to address racial disparities in traffic stops.

McCartney, the Warwick police chief, said the chiefs association was blind-sided by the bill and ACLU report. After the bill was submitted, the Civil Rights Roundtable invited the police chiefs to negotiate. The chiefs declared an impasse after two months. “I told them at the third session, ‘You’ve put us in the position of being the bad guys and naysayers, but you people changed the playing field,’ ” McCartney said.

THE BILL WOULD create the Immigration Status Protection Act, which prohibits state and local police from asking people about their immigration status or using an arrest as a pretext to verify their immigration status. It also says the police can’t “apprehend” people who are violating federal immigration laws, or enter into an agreement with the federal government to assist in enforcing federal immigration law. At the same time, the bill says it’s not meant to prohibit the police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

The bill would limit police searches of juveniles, forcing the police to tell juveniles they can refuse a search if the police do not have a warrant.

The bill would also ban pretext traffic stops — when the police stop a motorist for a minor traffic violation and investigate suspicious behavior.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that pretext stops are constitutional and that police have the right to ask passengers for identification. But Brown said those rulings simply mean the stops are not prohibited. “The Constitution sets a floor, not a ceiling,” he said.

The bill would also require the police to keep more documentation on probable cause and traffic stops and inquiries with immigration officials, and would set specific regulations on how police should handle videotapes of traffic stops.

Brown and Evora, of the state Commission of Human Rights, said the bill is intended to bar practices where a police officer may be motivated solely by race — such as pulling over a driver or asking for immigration papers.

McCartney said the civil-rights groups, and the ACLU in particular, haven’t given the police credit for making changes — and don’t give them room for doing their jobs.

Juveniles commit crimes and passengers in cars stopped for traffic violations may be wanted, he said. And, if the police arrest someone on drug charges and find out the suspect is an illegal immigrant, they can’t turn their backs on federal law, he said.

“Why does everything have to be a law? Why can’t you just change policies?” McCartney said. “You’re talking about a job that’s basically subjective in nature.”

amilkovi@projo.com