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May 13, 2004

State orders police to collect more detailed data on stops

Jeremy Schwab

Secretary of Public Safety Edward Flynn announced last week that most police departments in Massachusetts must record detailed information on every traffic stop following a state-sponsored study which showed that blacks, particularly men, are ticketed and searched at higher rates in those departments.

“The data validated what everyone knew — that police departments engage in racial profiling,” responded Boston NAACP President Leonard Alkins.

But law enforcement officials claim that the data does not necessarily show that officers are profiling.

“Some districts may say I want my officers to write out warnings, while other commanders may say I want you to be tougher,” said a spokeswoman for Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole. “Say in Roxbury, a commander wants tougher traffic enforcement and doesn’t want warnings and a commander in Southie says, ‘No, give them warnings.’ What we really need to do is look a little further at why are we getting these disproportions.”

The difference in interpretation underscores the potential difficulties ahead as the state, local police departments and activists debate how to reduce the level of disparities.
Flynn is requiring that departments collect data on all stops, not just those that result in citations or warnings, and that such data include the race of the driver, the reason for the stop and the name of the officer.

“The only consequence is you need to collect more data, which when you think about it is a pretty weak consequence,” said attorney Barbara Dougan, who worked on a task force that advised Flynn on the traffic stop report done by Northeastern University. “So there has to be a comprehensive legislative package requiring accountability from departments including discipline of officers who engage in racial profiling.”

Some police chiefs and officers balked at collecting more data, despite the overwhelming evidence, gleaned from tens of thousands of traffic citations and vehicle searches in every police department in the state over a two-year period, that police officers across-the-board target black men and other minority drivers more frequently than whites.

In media reports, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association executive director Richard Marchese defended the professionalism of police officers, while Boston Police Patrolmen’s Union area representative James Carnell suggested that collecting data on all stops made by each officer will simply cause officers to make fewer stops.

Carnell did not return calls for comment, while a staff attorney for the Chiefs of Police Association could not be reached for comment before the Banner’s press deadline.

Other police chiefs, including O’Toole, ordered the collection of data on all traffic stops even before Flynn’s ordered them to do so.

Lowell Police Superintendent Ed Davis had already ordered that his officers collect data on “investigative” stops even before Flynn mandated that officers in most departments begin doing so in January 2005.

“We believe more information is better,” said Davis. “We want to try to analyze as much data as possible to get a sense of why officers do what they do. What we want to be able to do is explain to the community why enforcement is taking place. We want to be able to say there are discrepancies in tickets written, but here is why they are written.”

Despite Davis and O’Toole’s proactive stances in collecting the additional data and in conducting training for officers on how not to profile, their belief that more data must be collected before it can be determined whether profiling is taking place has them at odds with some activists.

Davis did, however, admit that officers may be profiling.

“Clearly racial profiling is an issue for our profession,” said Davis. “We are still recruiting from the human race and bias is unfortunately a part of human nature.”

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