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Addressing Racial Profiling In Policy - January 2001

The Problem

An African-American man and his 12-year-old son were stopped by the police on a highway during August. The reason for the stop was unclear to the man. In a traffic stop lasting two and one-half hours, the father and son were placed in a police car with the windows closed, the air conditioning turned off, and the vents blowing hot air. The police told the father and son that a police dog (also present) would attack them if they tried to escape. The police thoroughly searched the car during this time. Over an hour into the stop, one officer shut off the video recorder in his patrol car. Finally, the father and son were allowed to go on their way. No arrest was made.

This incident occurred not in Virginia but in another state and received much media attention as an example of racial profiling. By labeling the incident as racial profiling, those who use the term as criticism of police behavior mean that the African-American driver, a decorated war veteran, was stopped for no other reason than a vague suspicion that he might be an illegal drug trafficker because of his race. Critics reason that the officers may have believed that drug traffickers are usually black; the war veteran was black; therefore, he may have had something to do with drug trafficking. Some critics call the incident "driving while black," a description that inflames many citizens and forces law-enforcement executives to defend the actions of their officers. Because of the pressure of publicity and the complaints of citizens, most law-enforcement agencies are trying to promote model traffic stop policies by stressing the legal basis for stops and instructing on methods for making stops and interviewing drivers. Agencies are beginning to collect data on why citizens are stopped, for how long, for what reasons, and document any subsequent searches or arrests.

Critics of law enforcement argue that profiling too often becomes a substitute for critical judgement. They claim that the reliance on second-hand information erodes an understanding and application of reasonable or articulable suspicion, the legal basis for detaining citizens in order to resolve ambiguity. If officers stop citizens based on profiles, say the critics, then they are not honing their skills for seeking actual criminals. Law-enforcement managers, on the other hand, recognize the random nature of most patrol or traffic enforcement activities, and are sensitive to the problems they can present. If officers do not use specific, articulable reasons for stopping citizens, then the community becomes alienated from the police for stopping people with no particular cause. Further, higher courts have affirmed the legitimacy of law-enforcement officers use of "totality of circumstances" as a key criterion for stopping citizens. The problem, however, is that reliance on the totality of circumstances might mean a lack of articulable, specific reasons: the totality of circumstances might include everything, especially race.

The executive's nightmare truly begins when his or her agency receives a complaint or lawsuit alleging a deprivation of rights without cause following a traffic stop. One manager received the following letter from the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice:

Our investigation has revealed the following facts: (1) [Department] officers engage in a pattern or practice of the use of excessive force and of making false arrests and performing improper searches and seizures; (2) [Department] officers use racial epithets or racially insensitive language against African-Americans; (3) the municipal defendants fail properly to investigate complaints of misconduct; (4) the municipal defendants fail adequately to discipline officers who engage in misconduct; and (5) the [department] fails properly to supervise its officers.

The letter identifies a cluster of related problems--a pattern or practice of excessive force, false arrests, improper searches--and accuses managers of failing to investigate or otherwise properly discipline officers for racist behavior, and a lack of supervision. What precisely is a profile? Does it have a place in law-enforcement practice? As the letter from the Department of Justice implies, is racial profiling linked to poor supervision, training, and discipline? How should a manager address concerns about profiling in policy?

Profiling Defined

The term "profile" comes from the "war on drugs," as politicians and the news media refer to heightened enforcement of federal and local drug laws over recent years and the proliferation of new laws. Profiling may have begun with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) during the 1970s. Since the 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court has heard a number of cases which explore the limits of what can be done by a law-enforcement agency to detect and eliminate drug trafficking. DEA abstracted many characteristics of drug traffickers from criminal cases into a model or profile of behaviors commonly found among traffickers. Court decisions, however, regarding the legitimacy of searches in drug cases that involved profiles have been wary and cautious of their use. A characteristic used in one profile, for instance, may not apply in another instance. In one profile, the suspect's not looking at the officer was considered suspicious, whereas in another case an officer stated that he became suspicious when the suspect looked at the him. In one case the suspect's nervousness was considered a suspicious characteristics, whereas in another case the suspect's calm aroused the officer's suspicion. In these cases, officers seem to be relying on hunches without having any clear suspicion of criminality. The danger is that officers may begin to rely on such profiles rather than articulate elements of reasonable suspicion to justify searches of stopped citizens. For any useful profile, however, race should not be an element. If race is added to the profile, the danger is that the elements of the profile become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If an officer thinks that all drug suspects are black, then he or she will only notice potential black suspects.

The courts have generally supported the use of profiles although they have been inconsistent on defining how the components of profiles constitute reasonable suspicion. One of the most important cases on drug-courier profiling is United States v. Sokolow [109 S.Ct.1581 (1989)] which held that the Fourth Amendment does not preclude "'probabilistic' behaviors which include the 'personal characteristics' of drug couriers" as a basis for defining reasonable suspicion. Nevertheless, Sokolow reminded law enforcement that any short investigative stop requires "some minimal level of objective justification." Courts insist that cases involving an examination of profiling must nevertheless apply the rules of reasonable suspicion defined during the 1960s and evaluate the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time of the encounter. Since the 1960s, officers have been taught that reasonable suspicion is more than a mere hunch, that the evidence available to the officer at the time of the encounter with a citizen supersedes any post-incident second-guessing, and that the totality of the circumstances must be evaluated. With these elements in mind, one law-enforcement professional defines the use of profiles as:

nothing more than evaluating conduct, characteristics, and circumstances in a given situation and forming reasonable inferences from them by trained and experienced officers as consistent with patterns observed during previous successful investigations. [Quoted from The Role of Law Enforcement in Search and Seizure Warrant Actions, by Kevin J. Perry, Department of Criminal Justice Services, 1995, p. 38.]

Similarly, the Americans for Effective Law Enforcement (AELE), a non-profit organization of lawyers who defend law enforcement in civil liability cases, defines profiling in a sample policy as "the interdiction, detention, arrest or other nonconsensual treatment of an individual because of a characteristic or status" (click here to view the entire policy on the AELE web site).

Virginia courts have defined profiling in drug-courier cases as "an informally compiled abstract of characteristics thought typical of persons carrying illicit drugs" [from Iglesias v. Commonwealth, 7 Va.App.93, 372 S.E.2d 170 (1988)] but, like Sokolow, have emphasized that an articulable suspicion is still a requirement to justify Fourth Amendment intrusions. Another Virginia appellate decision has emphasized the two elements necessary to permit a stop based on a profile: the judgement or assessment of the officer must be based on the totality of circumstances, and the judgement or assessment must show a particularized or articulable suspicion (see Castaneda v. Commonwealth, 7 Va.App. 574, 376 S.E.2d 82, 1989). Given the persistence of profiling cases before the courts, it is no surprise to see the definition evolve, even though the same courts have been challenged to evaluate the role of race in profiling. Because the courts have not examined the factors or characteristics that define reasonable suspicion through profiling, say the critics, "implementation of the profile becomes an inherently subjective process that allows officials to adjust the profile to fit the suspect rather than applying the suspect's characteristics to the profile" (quoted from W. Richard Janikowski and David J. Giacopassi, "Pyrrhic Images, Dancing Shadows, and Flights of Fancy: The Drug Courier Profile as Legal Fiction,' Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, vol. 9, no. 1, March 1993, p. 65).

The most thorough, encompassing definition of profiling yet offered by the courts can be found in the text of a consent decree. The decree was issued following a finding by Department of Justice officials that law-enforcement officers of an Illinois community had made numerous stops of African-Americans based on a very generalized, vague profile of drug users and traffickers that the courts determined did not meet a reasonable suspicion definition. According to the decree, racial profiling is:

the consideration by an officer, in any fashion or to any degree, of the race or ethnicity of any civilian in deciding whether to surveil, stop, detain, interrogate, request consent to search, or search any civilian; except when officers are 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 and the officer relies, in part, on race or ethnicity in determining whether reasonable suspicion exists that a given individual is the person being sought [from Michael Ledford, Jr., Karen Ledford v. City of Highland Park, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, August 2, 2000].

Perhaps because the courts have not examined how the components of profiles meet the definition of reasonable suspicion, neither the courts, the news media, nor the law-enforcement agencies themselves have questioned whether profiles have predictive validity. In short, is the profile solid enough to predict with confidence that a person with such-and-such characteristics and behavior might be up to wrongdoing? The cases that receive attention are those in which the person stopped per a profile did indeed carry illegal drugs. How many stops are performed based on a profile that lead to nothing in comparison to those that find traffickers? Further, is the contention that most drug traffickers belong to a specific race valid? Some law-enforcement assumptions underlying profiles may be questionable, particularly considering the answer to the latter question. The best available statistics find that white drug abusers are found in like proportion to the presence of African-American abusers when compared to the population generally.

Racial profiling has attracted greater concern in recent years because of the expanded search/seizure prerogatives of law-enforcement officers owing to the evolution of case law and willingness of the courts to allow pretextual traffic stops. Based on current law, law-enforcement training emphasizes aggressive patrol tactics. On a traffic stop without a warrant an officer can request a driver's license and vehicle registration, order the driver and passengers to leave the vehicle, and, in an arrest, search the interior of the vehicle and all closed containers found within. On a consent search the officer can examine the entire vehicle. The 1996 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Whren, 116 S.Ct. 1769, affirmed that officers can stop vehicles to allay any suspicions even though the officers have no evidence of criminal behavior. The Whren case held that the officer's subjective intent is irrelevant when stopping a vehicle; the legitimacy of the stop will be gauged by its objective reasonableness. In other words, as long as officers have at least one legal reason for stopping a vehicle (such as a minor traffic violation), then it is irrelevant that they had some suspicion unrelated to the traffic stop. According to the Supreme Court, "Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis."

What a Profile is Not

Law-enforcement agencies are encouraged to construct profiles very cautiously: a profile is not a mere checklist, the presence of one or more characteristics justifying a stop of a citizen. A profile does not establish probable cause to arrest or search, but should support a reasonable suspicion of criminality. One Virginia appellate case (on drug courier profiling) has established that a drug courier profile that is composed of elements consistent with innocent behavior may not, by itself, justify a stop [see Taylor v. Commonwealth, VaCtApp (en banc), No. 1279-85, 5/17/88]. In fact, the court urged the dropping of the term "drug courier profile" because it is misleading: "This 'particularized suspicion' is not achieved by the mere presence of drug courier profile characteristics . . . More is required to elevate a law enforcement officer's' inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch' to a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person seized is engaged in criminal activity."

Further, another Virginia appellate decision forbids the use of race or national origin in drug-trafficking profiles unless these characteristics are used to describe a specific suspect. In Lowery v. Commonwealth, 9 Va.App. 314, 388 S.E.2d 265, 1990, an officer stopped a Florida rental car (with Florida license plates) in Virginia. The officer suspected that the car was stolen because the rental company concerned did not usually allow rentals to be taken beyond Florida. Further, the officer employed a drug courier profile which included an African-American or Hispanic driver, a rental car, and an out-of-state license plate. While the Virginia Court of Appeals found that the stop was justified based on the officer's suspicions, it held that the inclusion of the driver's race in the profile was wrong. The use of race among other characteristics (which constituted reasonable suspicion), according to the court, violated the Virginia Constitution, "the right to be free from government discrimination upon the basis of . . . race," and might cause a Fourteenth Amendment claim.

Even in the Whren case, the Supreme Court recognized that allegations of racial profiling might invoke the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which bars racial discrimination. What makes allegations of racial profiling so rancorous and divisive is that a Fourteenth Amendment claim might be supported only in cases where race, and no other elements of suspicion, proved the sole motivation for a stop. In virtually all cases, however, officers will be able to articulate other reasons for suspicion. In other words, while the opportunity to make a Fourteenth Amendment claim exists, it is almost impossible to make a case in this way.

Characteristics of Sound Profiles

Since the courts have recognized that profiles can be legitimate tools for stopping vehicles, even if the component of race can be included if officers have a specific description of a suspect, what constitutes a "good" profile? First, any profile must be based on observations of repeated behavior. Profiles must be reviewed frequently to ascertain their continuing validity: profiles ought to change periodically to remain reliable. Some characteristics of useful profiles include (based on past cases that have received judicial review) extreme nervousness in police presence, lying to police, flight or attempts to evade the police, or even furtive movements. Even this last element, furtive movements, requires further definition. Officers ought to be able to articulate what constitutes a furtive movement.

Even though the courts may broadly support profiles, the courts have repeatedly emphasized the need for adequate training coupled with extensive experience as the bedrock of any legitimate profile. Perhaps the best summary of what constitutes a legally-adequate, useful profile is the following quotation:

The determining factor in validating a stop based on [profile characteristics] is the ability of the officer: to observe the combination of characteristics; to articulate the individual ingredients of suspicious behavior; and to demonstrate the competence needed for reaching the conclusion that a violation of drug trafficking laws was in progress. [Quoted in "Drug Courier Profiles After Sokolow: Legal Review and Analysis," Joseph Sadighian, Asset Forfeiture Special Bulletin, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Washington, DC, 1989.]

Any law-enforcement agency that condones the use of profiles must have in place adequate written directives that address the contexts within which profiling exists such as traffic stops, investigative detention, patrol strategies and tactics, narcotics enforcement, and searches and seizures. A generalized order on racial profiling may do little good: the only way to ensure that proper constitutional safeguards are observed is to promulgate legally-sound, practicable orders addressing relevant profiling contexts. The orders, however, only serve the agency's and the community's interests when supported by on-going training and proper supervision and discipline. If proper training on directives does not exist or supervision is inadequate, then any written directives are useless.

Particularly essential is written guidance to help officers determine when reasonable suspicion exists to examine possible criminality, and to articulate the elements of the suspicion. The Department of Criminal Justice Services Sample Directives for Law-Enforcement Agencies contains the following relevant definitions of key terms in General Order 2-3, Field Interviews; Stop/Frisk:

III. A. Field interview

A brief detention of a person to determine the person's identity and to resolve the officer's suspicions about possible criminal activity. A field interview resolves an ambiguous situation. A field interview contrasts with a stop which is based on reasonable suspicion of criminal behavior. Field interviews require voluntary cooperation of citizens.

B. Frisk

A "pat-down" search of outer garments for weapons.

C. Reasonable suspicion

Articulable facts which lead an experienced officer to reasonably suspect that a crime has been or is about to be committed. A well-founded suspicion is based on the totality of the circumstances and does not exist unless it can be articulated.

D. Stop

The detention of a subject for a brief period of time. In order to make the stop, the officer must have reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity is afoot and that the person to be stopped is involved. A stop is investigative detention. The following characteristics may, under the circumstances, give rise to reasonable suspicion for a stop.

1. Officer has knowledge that the person has a criminal record.

2. A person fits the description of a wanted notice.

3. A person has exhibited furtive conduct such as fleeing from the presence of an officer or attempting to conceal an object from the officer's view.

4. The appearance, behavior, or actions of the suspect suggest that he is committing a crime.

5. The time of day or night is inappropriate for the suspect's presence in a particular area.

6. The officer observes a vehicle that is similar to that of a broadcast description for a known offense.

7. A person exhibits unusual behavior, such as staggering or appearing to be in need of medical attention.

8. The suspect is in a place proximate in time and location to an alleged crime.

9. Hearsay information is acceptable. In order for the information to be credible, the officer must have some means to gauge the reliability of the informant's knowledge.

10. The suspect is carrying an unusual object, or his clothing bulges in a manner consistent with concealing a weapon.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has created a Sample Professional Traffic Stops Policy and Procedure which offers the following definitions of relevant terms:

Racial profiling: The detention, interdiction, or other disparate treatment of any person on the basis of their racial or ethnic status or characteristics.

Reasonable suspicion: Also known as articulable suspicion. Suspicion that is more than a mere hunch, but is based on a set of articulable facts and circumstances that would warrant a person of reasonable caution in believing that an infraction of the law has been committed, is about to be committed, or is in the process of being committed, by the person or persons under suspicion. This can be based on the observations of a police officer combined with his or her training and experience, and/or reliable information received from credible outside sources.

The Department of Criminal Justice Services sample directives includes General Order 2-16, Narcotics Enforcement which provides guidance on profiles, in the order described as indicators:

III. G. Indicators

Frequently, stops of citizens based on reasonable suspicion that criminality may be occurring lead to seizures of narcotics and arrests. Refer to GO 2-3 for a discussion of investigative detention. Indicators, sometimes called profiles, refer to a cluster of characteristics that, when taken together, suggest criminality. These characteristics are used to pick a suspect so that he or she can be watched or approached. The department expects officers to detect criminality by deploying all legal investigative strategies but officers are cautioned not to borrow a third-hand indicator of a drug courier to substitute for good judgement. Reasonable suspicion that criminality has occurred or is occurring depends on facts known to the officer at the time of the stop or arrest. A legitimate indicator, sanctioned by the department, is a very specific attribute that is only valid for a limited time and under limited circumstances. These attributes or indicators can only be established based on considerable training and experience about drug trafficking. In any event, officers shall not consider race or national origin only in determining whether or not to stop a person for a field interview.

AELE's specimen order includes similar guidance on the use of race as a profiling characteristic:

Officers are prohibited from stopping, detaining, searching or arresting anyone because of the person's race, national origin, citizenship, religion, ethnicity, age, gender or sexual orientation--unless they are seeking an individual with one or more of those identified attributes.

a. Officers may consider a person's apparent age when investigating a possible curfew violation.

b. Officers are frequently alerted to look for suspects and repeat offenders that fit a particular description.

c. [The officer shall record data about the stop] after stopping a person or vehicle, with the following information.

"The following information" includes the age, race, ethnicity of the driver or person stopped, the nature of the stop, the law violated, whether the vehicle or its occupants were searched, and the disposition of the incident. AELE suggests that agencies use a specially-designed form as a method of capturing the necessary information for later analysis. As for obtaining the race and ethnicity of a driver or vehicle occupant, the AELE order states:

The officer will not ask the offender for demographic information. Rather, the officer will use the individual's driver's license or the officer's own observation to determine the demographic information required above.

The AELE directive states that officers must write reports if any people or vehicles are searched, anyone is handcuffed or taken into custody, force was applied, or the driver or occupant questions whether the stop was made because of profiling.

If an agency tries to adopt language regarding profiles into relevant directives, the agency might not only examine specimen or sample directives but also consent decrees. The following policy statement, which could be adapted for training or policy purposes, is instructive. The policy derives from the Memorandum of Agreement Between the United States Department of Justice, Montgomery County, Maryland, the Montgomery County Department of Police, and the Fraternal Order of Police, Montgomery County Lodge 35, Inc., January 14, 2000:

The [police department] will continue to prohibit police officers from exercising their police powers in a manner that unlawfully discriminates against individuals based on race, national origin, gender, religion, or ethnicity. In addition, except in the situation described below, [police department] officers will not, to any degree, use the race or national or ethnic origin of drivers or passengers in deciding which vehicles to subject to a traffic stop, or a checkpoint or roadblock stop, and in deciding upon the scope or substance of any action in connection with a traffic stop or a checkpoint or roadblock stop. Where [police department] officers are on the lookout for, or are seeking to stop, detain, or apprehend, one or more specific persons who are identified or described in part by race or national or ethnic origin, [police department] officers may rely in part on race or national or ethnic origin in taking appropriate action.

The [jurisdiction] will ensure that all sworn officers and other [department] employees are fully aware of the commitment of the [jurisdiction] to carry out all law enforcement activities in a nondiscriminatory manner. The [jurisdiction] shall issue and distribute to all officers and [department] employees a statement of policy against discrimination. . . .

In anticipation of the possibility that some officers will employ profiles for "fishing expeditions" to turn up any evidence of illegality to justify a search or further intrusion into a person's property, the IACP directive contains the following provisions:

No motorist, once cited or warned, shall be detained beyond the point where there exists no reasonable suspicion of further criminal activity, and no person or vehicle shall be searched in the absence of a warrant, a legally recognized exception to the warrant requirement, or the person's voluntary consent. In each case where a search is conducted, this information shall be recorded, including the legal basis for the search, and the results thereof. It is strongly recommended that consent searches only be conducted with written consent, using the proper department form. If the individual indicates that they will consent to a search but are refusing to sign the form, fill out the form anyway and indicate 'consented to search but refused to sign,' inserting initials and the signature of any witness in the signature block.

In the absence of a specific, credible report containing a physical description, a person's race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation or any combination of these shall not be a factor in determining probable cause for an arrest or reasonable suspicion for a stop.

The deliberate recording of any misleading information related to the actual or perceived race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation of a person stopped for investigative or enforcement purposes is prohibited and a cause for disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.

The IACP directive, then, makes clear the disciplinary consequences for those who conduct stops for unauthorized purposes or in an unauthorized manner. Generally, most agencies that have created orders on high-risk or critical-task subjects (such as investigative stops) fail to describe adequately supervisory responsibilities. The IACP directive includes a provision for supervisors:

Supervisors shall review profiling complaints, periodically review a sampling of in-car video tapes of stops, reports filed on stops by officers, and respond at random to back up officers on vehicle stops, and shall take appropriate action whenever it appears that this policy is being violated, being particularly alert to any pattern or practice of possible discriminatory treatment by individual officers or squads.

In the spirit of openness to community scrutiny, the IACP directive includes the following:

On an annual basis, the department shall make public a statistical summary of all profiling complaints for the year, including the findings as to whether they were sustained, not sustained, or exonerated.

The above statement should appear in relevant orders on complaints and internal investigations or internal review.

Orders must be clear on the limits of officers' authority. Orders ought to remind officers that a point may be reached in any interaction with a citizen when the citizen should be allowed to continue on his or her way. Similarly, orders ought to state that a citizen's refusal to cooperate or provide information does not create any justification for further law-enforcement action. A frequently-overlooked provision in directives on conducting investigative stops is any instruction on how to "disengage" from the situation. If the officer begins an investigative stop on some suspicion but during the interaction nothing occurs to heighten this suspicion, the officer should not continue to intrude until something incriminating shows up. Orders should make clear that after a brief interval, if nothing suspicious demands further questioning, the citizen should be allowed to continue about his or her business. Minimally, in any stop, officers should identify themselves by name. Some agencies require officers to present a card to any stopped citizen that includes the officer's name and instructions in case the citizen has further questions (or a complaint) about the stop. The card might also identify the name of the chief law enforcement officer of the agency and provide his or her telephone number. Officers should conclude stops by explaining the reason for them and by thanking citizens for their cooperation. Agencies concerned about community-oriented policing goals and strategies should pay particular emphasis to these courtesies in policy because the person stopped may later have valuable information on criminality and the conduct of the stop may affect the citizen's willingness to approach law enforcement later.

Conclusion

Charleston, South Carolina's police chief, Reuben Greenberg, recently stated that racial profiling is "a little bitty problem" that may be bigger for state police or highway patrol, whose agencies perform "a very, very narrow aspect of law enforcement" (Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 27, 2000). Chief Greenberg meant that, of all encounters with citizens, concerns about racial profiling apply to a very small sample of encounters for most law-enforcement officers. Still, community members and political leaders are alert to the phenomenon of race-based, suspicionless stops. Before an agency creates or alters its written directives, it must take stock of its own business. Can an agency head speak with authority about how patrol officers spend their time? How they respond to calls for assistance? All law-enforcement agencies must know who is being stopped and for what reasons. Many methods exist for gathering this information: some patrol officers record data through mobile data terminals (MDTs); others use personal digital assistants, or PDAs, an emerging technology. Most agencies still use field interview cards. An increasing number of agencies have patrol officers videotape their stops. No matter what enforcement action occurs incident to a stop, an agency ought to record the location, date, and time of a stop; the purpose of the stop; the source of information, if relevant (a be-on-the-lookout broadcast, for instance); the disposition of the stop; the circumstances of any searches of vehicles or persons; and the disposition of confiscated property or contraband. Note that consent decrees imposed by court order or through agreement with the federal government always require what agencies should have been collecting all along: data. Consult the consent decrees through the web sites listed below for lists of data that agencies ought to be collecting.

Just as important as the statistics is their interpretation. Many reasons justify why an officer has made a stop; the officer may not have recorded all of these at the time. Involve the entire organization when deciding what data to collect and how: officers are most likely to contribute information to a system they helped to design and which they support.

Each significant higher court decision on searches and seizures shapes the culture of law enforcement. Officers rightly put legal principles to practical use in innovative and clever ways. Whatever they do, officers must have sound legal guidance and managerial oversight. Managers best serve officers in the field by closely observing and assessing field practices, shaping field practices through written directives, and enforcing them continuously by training and supervision. Devising and publishing another directive for a manual is a common response to a new problem for management. Simply "covering the problem with a policy" may do more harm than good, however: a policy on racial profiling may be the manager's way of declaring a point of view to the community, but will likely have no effect on officers' behavior. The improper use of race as a pretext for stopping citizens is best eliminated by comprehensive, on-going training in the limits and prerogatives of constitutional safeguards, backed by attentive and informed supervision. Recognizing the need for a broad approach to eliminating race-based profiles, the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police adopted the following resolution on August 16, 2000:

The Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police urges all law enforcement agencies to utilize professionally accepted guidelines when developing strategies for crime control, traffic law enforcement and vehicle stops . . . all Virginia law enforcement agencies are urged to continue to examine their policies and procedures, their mission and value statements, training programs, field supervision, evaluation of citizen complaints and other efforts to ensure that racial or ethnic based traffic stops are not being employed within their agencies and that all citizens are treated with the utmost courtesy and respect when they encounter Virginia law enforcement officers.

For Further Information:

Special issue on Fourth Amendment issues, with a focus on United States v. Sokolow, a key drug-courier profile case, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 80, no. 4, 1990.

Jack E. Call, "Drug Courier Profiles," Virginia Police Chief, Autumn, 1994.

W. Richard Janikowski, David J. Giacopassi, "Pyrrhic Images, Dancing Shadows, and Flights of Fancy: The Drug Courier Profile as Legal Fiction,' Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, vol. 9, no. 1, March 1993.

Kevin J. Strom, Matthew R. Durose, "Traffic Stop Data Collection Policies for State Police, 1999," Bureau of Justice Statistics Fact Sheet, February, 2000.

David A. Harris, "The Stories, the Statistics, and the Law; Why 'Driving While Black' Matters," Minnesota Law Review, vol. 84, no. 2, December, 1999.

"Race, Reasonable Articulable Suspicion, and Seizure," by Randall S. Susskind, American Criminal Law Review, vol. 31, no. 2, winter, 1994, pp. 327-348.

The following articles from the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, some of which may be available through the FBI web site:

http://www.fbi.gov/

"Consent Searches, Guidelines for Officers," by Kimberly A. Crawford, August, 1996.

"Pretext Traffic Stops, Whren v. United States, " by John C. Hall, November, 1996.

"Search Incident to Arrest, Another Look," by Thomas D. Colbridge, May, 1999.

"Investigative Detentions, How Long is Too Long?", by Jayme S. Walker, August, 1999.

"Investigative Detention, Constitutional Constraints on Police Use of Force," by John C. Hall, May, 1998.

Web links:

International Association of Chiefs of Police:

http://www.theiacp.org/pubinfo/pubs/samplestopspolicy.htm

IACP Sample Professional Traffic Stops Policy and Procedure

http://www.theiacp.org/pubinfo/pubs/racialprofilingtext.htm

Policies Help Gain Public Trust: Guidance from the IACP Highway Safety Committee, excerpted from the July 2000 Police Chief magazine (above policy is an attachment)

Americans for Effective Law Enforcement:

http://www.aele.org/hotissues.html

AELE lists articles on racial profiling; can click on them to open files

Other:

http://www.aclu.org/store/amazon/police.html

Information on a book by Kenneth Meeks, Driving While Black, Broadway Books, 2000

http://www.aclu.org/profiling/report/index.html

David A. Harris, "Driving While Black: Racial Profiling on Our Nation's Highways," an ACLU Special Report, June 1999.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=119&subid=156&contentid=523

John D. Cohen, Janet J. Lennon, and Robert Wasserman, "Eliminating Racial Profiling," a report of the Democratic Leadership Council's Progressive Policy Institute.

Various consent decrees, correspondence, and legal documents pertaining to racial profiling can be found at the web site of the U.S. Department of Justice. Here is a sample:

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/columbus.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/columbuscomp.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/polmis.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/pittspdfind.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/steubencomp.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/jerseycomp.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/jerseysa.htm

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