Driving
While
Non-White
4/9/99
The American Civil Liberties Union has produced statistical evidence it says proves allegations that Illinois State Police have targeted Black and Latino drivers for traffic stops. The statistics, gathered by the ACLU in an analysis of more than six million police department records between 1990 and 1995, are some of the first hard data backing a perception among many Americans that "Driving While Black" has become probable cause for law enforcement to stop and attempt to search a vehicle. Among other findings, the ACLU's analysis shows that more than one third of cars stopped by the state's drug interdiction unit were driven by Latinos, even though Latinos make up 7.9 percent of Illinois' population and are estimated to be drivers in only 2.7 percent of personal vehicle trips. Also damning was the ACLU's finding that searches of cars that led to a seizure of property occurred in as few as 12 percent of searches, lending credence to the idea that many of the stops and searches were arbitrary. Harvey Grossman, legal director for the Illinois ACLU, told the Associated Press that the state patrol's practices made driving in Illinois "the equivalent of traveling in a totalitarian state where you are routinely stopped for searches. It's like a tax for driving on the highway," he said. Lincoln Hampton, a spokesman for the state police, disagreed. "When we make a stop, it's not based on race or gender or anything of that nature," he told the AP. "It's based on probable cause that some law is being broken, whether it's traffic or otherwise. We have to have a reason." But a spokesman for the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, DC, which has monitored reports of racial profiling around the country, said the ACLU's findings are not surprising. "It's clear from similar complaints in Maryland, Florida, New Jersey and elsewhere that some police departments have used profiles to shake down minority drivers," said Rob Stewart. It's a long standing practice that needs to be addressed and needs to end." The Illinois ACLU spent years tracking down the statistics they used for their analysis, which is part of a court case dating back over four years. The process has been hindered there because the Illinois state police, like many of the other departments that have come under scrutiny of late, make note of a driver's race in only a small percentage of traffic stops and searches. US Representative John Conyers (D-MI) plans to introduce a bill that would require the Department of Justice, and thereby law enforcement agencies nationwide, to maintain statistics on racial and ethnic data on motorists who are stopped. Stewart said such a law could play a key role in reducing profiling. "Just keeping the statistics could help, because if the public knew about the law, the police would be less likely to use profiles," he said. "Also, the law would give teeth to anti-profiling policies, by allowing people to sue if profiling is involved in their stop or arrest." (Media Alert: the current issue of Esquire contains an expose on the development and deployment of racial profiling written by Gary Webb, the author of the San Jose Mercury News series on the CIA/crack cocaine connection.)
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