Racially Biased Policing: A Principled Response

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Racially Biased Policing A Principled Response

• Lorie A. Fridell, Ph.D.
• Director of Research
• PERF

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Todays Presentation

• Quick overview of PERF report on racially biased
  policing
• In depth coverage
• POLICY Why policy is important various models
• DATA COLLECTION Challenges associated with
  analyzing/interpreting police-citizen contact
  data

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Will place this presentation on PERF web site

• www.policeforum.org
• Racial Profiling
• Related Links and Resources

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PERF Report Racial Biased Policing A
Principled Response

• PURPOSE Provide guidance to law enforcement
  agency executives in their response to RBP and
  perceptions of RBP
• FUNDING COPS Office
• AVAILABILITY www.policeforum.org
• Softbound copies available by calling
• 1-888-202-4563

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Chapters
Introduction
Police and Citizen Perceptions
Supervision and Accountability
Data Collection
Anti-Biased Policing Policy
Minority Community Outreach
Recruitment and Selection
Training and Education
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New Resource Video and Guide

• Again, with COPS Funding
• Video to facilitate police-citizen discussion of
  RBP and perceptions of its practice
• Sets forth issues and prospects for
  police-citizen collaboration
• Guide Structures post-video discussion that
  results in action plans for reform
• Available via PERF web site in 3 weeks
• www.policeforum.org

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Anti-Biased Policing Policy

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Need Policies to Guide Officers in the Use of
Race/Ethnicity in Making Decisions

• Survey Fewer than 4 reported policies that
  specify when race can be used as one factor
  among several to make policing decisions
  (training)
• Focus Groups Different views among personnel
  within same agency regarding whether/how
  race/ethnicity can/should be used to make
  decisions
• This ambiguity creates great risk of biased
  policing activities.

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PERF Report Definition

• Racially biased policing occurs when the police
  inappropriately consider race or ethnicity in
  deciding with whom and how to intervene in an
  enforcement capacity.

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Find the line ..
Inappropriate Use of Race Based on
stereotypes, biases, etc.
Appropriate Use of Race Legally relevant
Appropriate Use of Race Legally relevant

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Three Major Models

• Anti-Racial Profiling Policies
• Suspect-specific policies
• PERF Report Policy.

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From most restrictive to least
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Anti-RP Policies

• Do not intervene (stop, arrest, search) solely
  on the basis of race
• Positive Convey a message
• But do not provide new guidance to personnel

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• Surely officers knew before such policies were
  adopted that they could not intervene in a law
  enforcement capacity SOLELY on basis of race.

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Must provide more meaningful guidance.

• Again, 95 of departments surveyed reported that
  they did not provide this guidance in policy.

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Suspect-Specific Policies

• Officers may not consider race or ethnicity of a
  person in the course of any law enforcement
  action
• UNLESS the officer is seeking to detain,
  apprehend, or otherwise be on the lookout for
• a SPECIFIC SUSPECT sought in connection with a
  SPECIFIC CRIME who has been identified or
  described in part by race or ethnicity.

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Suspect-Specific Policies (Cont.)

• Example If looking for a suspect--reliable
  information indicates he is 58, lean,
  long-haired and ASIAN
• ASIAN can be considered (along with the other
  demographics, evidence) in developing RS or PC to
  detain/arrest.

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PERF Report Policy

• Encompasses the Suspect-Specific provision
• But allows for additional uses of race beyond
• specific known suspect
• specific crime.

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Has both 4th and 14th Amendment provisions

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4th Amendment Provision

• Officers shall not consider race/ethnicity to
  establish reasonable suspicion or probable cause
  EXCEPT ..

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Exception

• Officers may take into account the reported
  race/ethnicity of a potential suspect(s) based on
  trustworthy, locally-relevant information that
  links a person or persons of a specific
  race/ethnicity to a particular unlawful
  incident(s).

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PERF Report Policy

• Disallows race used as a general indicator for
  criminal behavior
• Disallows use of stereotypes/biases
• Allows for the consideration of race AS ONE
  FACTOR in making law enforcement decisions IF
• trustworthy and locally relevant information
• links specific suspected unlawful activity to a
  person or persons of a particular race/ethnicity.
  
• Relies on Descriptions of actual suspects, not
  general Predictions of who may be involved in
  crime

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The Principles Underlying PERF Report Policy

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Principle Race/ethnicity should be treated like
other demographic descriptors

• Police can use race/ethnicity as one factor in
  the same way that they use age, gender, etc. to
  establish RS/PC.

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Opposing ArgumentRace/Ethnicity Are Different

• Race/ethnicity are among a group of factors that
  have heightened constitutional protection (others
  include, e.g., religion, gender)
• Does this mean we should also give gender this
  special status in guiding police behavior? ..

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Race/Ethnicity are Different(Cont.)

• No, race/ethnicity are different (particularly in
  the law enforcement context), because
• We have heightened community concern about the
  use of race/ethnicity (not gender).
• We have prejudices in society vis a vis
  race/ethnicity that provide for the potential
  abuse.
• Relatedly, we have a history of actual abuse
  and/or perceived abuse on the part of police vis
  a vis race/ethnicity (not gender).

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Principle We use (or should use) demographic
information in policing in the manner articulated
in the PERF Policy

• That is, the parameters on the use of
  race/ethnicity are the same ones that do (or
  should) apply to other demographics (e.g.,
  gender, age).

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That is

• Information on Demographic A (e.g., age) can be
  considered as one factor
• IF trustworthy, locally relevant information
• Links specific suspected unlawful activity to a
  person or persons who manifest Demographic A
  (e.g., age).

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Opposing Argument

• We should focus only on behavior, not
  demographics
• (At least outside of a suspect-specific
  description.)

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Example Using Demographic, Age

• Graffiti problem at particular location
• Credible witnesses describe several perpetrators
• 54 white male juvenile, red hair, blue
  sweatshirt and khakis, tattoo
• 53 black female juvenile, black hair, jeans and
  red t-shirt
• 5 1 Asian male juvenile, tattoo, Redskins
  jacket and jeans
• Etc

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Example (Cont.)

• Officer is charged with stopping this behavior
• She will use multiple factors to establish
  reasonable suspicion prior to any detention
• Is juvenile relevant to her activity??
• PERF Report Policy Yes

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Multiple factors and juvenile can be one of
them..
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Because, we have

• Trustworthy, locally relevant information
  (witnesses)
• that links a person or persons of a specific
  demographic (juvenile)
• to particular unlawful incidents (graffiti in a
  particular location).

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Example Race/Ethnicity CAN be considered

• A number of middle school students have reported
  that adult, Hispanic men are selling guns to
  students in the area immediately surrounding the
  school.
• Officer could consider citizen ethnicity around
  the school as ONE factor in totality weapons
  charge. (Just as they could consider adult, men.)
• Other info, e.g., observes exchange of goods for
  money with students.

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Use of Race/Ethnicity Not OK

• Officer sees poorly dressed young African
  American male walking in an upper-class white
  neighborhood
• This is NOT a sufficient basis for a detention
  AND, further, should not be used as a basis for a
  pretext stop.
• That is, the policy precludes the
  race-out-of-place stops.

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Importantly
Only talking about using race/ethnicity as ONE
factor among multiple factors in establishing RS
or PC
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14th Amendment Provision

• Thus far, we have focused on the 4th Amendment
  provision of the policy
• Indicating when police can use race as one factor
  in a set of factors to establish RS or PC.

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Need for this equal protection provision

• The 4th Amendment provision is necessary, but not
  sufficient.
• Officers may meet all 4th Amendment requirements
  of policy and still be biased in their treatment
  of citizens (e.g., deciding which lawbreakers
  they will detain, cite, arrest respect shown).
• Need an additional provision to highlight equal
  protection in all police activities.

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14th Amendment Provision

• Except as provided above, race/ethnicity shall
  not be motivating factors in making law
  enforcement decisions.

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We need this second provision to prohibit, for
instance

• Disproportionately arresting minorities (but not
  non-minorities) for noise violations because of
  their race/ethnicity
• Disproportionately targeting minorities for Whren
  stops, because of their race/ethnicity
• Treating persons with disrespect because of their
  race/ethnicity.

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Sets up the but for test for officers

• Would I be engaging this particular person but
  for the fact that this person is Hispanic?
• Would I be asking this question of this person
  but for the fact that this person is African
  American?

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Together, the two provisions

• Prohibit racially biased policing
• Tightly circumscribe use of race/ethnicity in
  making decisions
• Prompt officers to carefully consider their
  motives for engaging individuals.

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Recommendation

• Should consider adopting a policy that guides
  your officers in the use of race/ethnicity to
  make law enforcement decisions
• Recommend it be at least as restrictive as PERFs
  or go further and adopt the suspect-specific
  model.

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Info on PERF Report Policy

• Chapter 4 of PERF Report at www.policeforum.org
  (Racial Profiling)
• New supplementary discussion paper regarding
  principles on which policy is based.

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ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING POLICE-CITIZEN CONTACT
DATA

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PERF Report Covers

• Arguments for/against data collection
• Recommendations regarding
• What activities to target
• What data elements to collect
• Preliminary discussion of benchmarking
  (Comparison groups for analyzing data)

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TODAY

• Focus on analysis/interpretation of
  police-citizen contact data

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Issue is related to arguments for/against
collecting police-citizen contact data

• A major arguments in favor of data collection
• It conveys concern and accountability to
  citizens/personnel.
• We need data collection to measure the
  nature/extent of RBP
• Key counter-concern Whether social science can
  turn the data into meaningful/valid assessments
  of nature/extent of RBP.

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Nationwide need

• Better understanding (on the part of citizens,
  media, police practitioners) of the issues
  related to analyzing/interpreting police-citizen
  contact data
• Guidance on analysis/interpretation for police
  agencies collecting data.

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Responding to these needs

• COPS Office funded project
• Being conducted by PERF
• Will produce two documents

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First General Education Document

• Targeting a broad audience police agencies,
  citizens, policy makers, media, etc.
• Discussing the potential and constraints of
  police-citizen contact data to assess the
  nature/extent of racially biased policing
• Purpose To educate To bring expectations for
  these systems in line with social science
  realities.

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Second Technical Document

• Targeting police agencies that are collecting
  data and their social science partners
• How to guide on analyzing/interpreting
  police-citizen contact data.

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Process/Resources

• Advisory Board comprised of
• Social scientists (e.g., Lamberth, Zingraff,
  Cordner, Decker, McDevitt)
• Department RD reps
• Agency executives
• Identified needed products
• Produced outline of both products
• Providing information on content
• Reviewing section drafts..

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Processes/Resources (Cont.)

• ALSO PERF staff have reviewed all jurisdiction
  reports we could identify/access, to
• Identify any best practices
• Identify common weaknesses.

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TODAY

• Convey conceptually the challenge of benchmarking
• This will comprise a major portion of the
  General Education document and the introduction
  to the Technical document

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The quest of data collection

• To determine whether there is a causal main
  effect between citizen race/ethnicity and police
  behavior
• To do this we must rule out the possible causal
  impact of ALTERNATIVE, LEGITIMATE factors
  associated with police action
• e.g., driving quantity, driving quality

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How do we control for these alternative factors
that might impact on police behavior?

• Agencies try to develop COMPARISON GROUPS that
  reflect the demographic makeup of groups AT RISK
  of being stopped by police
• Terminology Benchmarking the data

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For instance

• We find that 25 of traffic stops within a
  jurisdiction are of Hispanics
• Benchmarking question To what do we compare the
  25?
• What percentage would indicate racially biased
  policing?

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Various benchmarks being used

• Departments comparing demographic profiles of
  people stopped to demographic profiles of, for
  instance
• The residential population
• Residential population with drivers licenses
• People involved in accidents
• People arrested
• People observed driving on jurisdiction roads

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Benchmark Quality

• Benchmarks vary considerably in the extent to
  which they encompass or control for the
  legitimate factors that impact on police
  behavior.
• To assess benchmarks, we start by asking What
  are those factors that might account for the fact
  that each racial group is not equally represented
  among traffic stops? Note, the following
  focuses on traffic stops.

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That is, why do we NOT find that police in a
jurisdiction with Caucasians, African Americans,
Hispanics and Asians report that each group was
stopped 25 of the time?

• One hypothesis
• Racially Biased Policing

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Competing, alternative hypotheses include

• Racial/ethnic groups are not equally represented
  as residents in the jurisdiction.
• Racial/ethnic groups are not equally represented
  as drivers on jurisdiction roads.
• Racial/ethnic groups are not equivalent in the
  nature/extent of their traffic law violating
  behavior.
• Racial/ethnic groups are not equally represented
  as drivers on roads where police are more likely
  to be.

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To draw definitive conclusions regarding whether
racial bias is occurring

• We need to rule out all other possible,
  legitimate explanations for disproportionality.

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That is, ideally Department analyses would
encompasses all factors reflected in alternative
hypotheses.

• Driving quantity,
• Driving quality,
• Driving location, etc.

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Sum

• Hypotheses for disproportionate representation of
  racial/ethnic groups among people stopped by
  police include
• The racial bias hypotheses
• Several, viable alternative hypotheses.

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Accounting for Alternative Hypothesis Census
Benchmarking as an Example

• In census-benchmarking, agencies compare
• the demographic profiles of the people stopped to
  the
• demographic profiles of the residents in the
  jurisdictions as measured by U.S. Census

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Lets say the agency finds disproportionate
representation of minorities among people stopped

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Hypothetical Data
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Possible explanations

• Racially biased policing OR
• Disproportionate reption of minorities on
  jurisdiction roads (compared to residential pop)
• Disproportionate reption of minorities as law
  violators
• Disproportionate reption of minorities in places
  where police most likely to be.

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We dont assume Gender Biased Policing when we
see
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In Sum, census benchmarking

• Addresses only one of the alternative
  hypotheses (residential makeup)
• Therefore, cannot pinpoint cause of
  disproportionate reption of minorities
• Cannot draw conclusions regarding racially biased
  policing.

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Technical Document will

• Describe various benchmarks in use
• Guide agencies in the selection of benchmarks
• Characterize their quality in terms of ability
  to address alternative hypotheses.
• Provide detailed how to information for using
  the various benchmarks.

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Also, information on

• Analyzing search data
• Analyzing other during-stop activity/variables
• Developing formulas for disparity
• Data presentation (e.g., figures)
• Interpreting the overall results
• Conveying the results to community and personnel
• Using the data for reform.

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Both documents available later summer, early fall

• www.policeforum.org

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