SAN FRANCISCO - The Sacramento NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the ACLU of Northern California are calling for major policy changes following release of the second Sacramento Police Department (SPD) report on racial profiling. The data this year, like last years, shows dramatic disparities in how African American and Latino motorists are treated when compared with white motorists as well as significant underreporting of stops and searches by SPD officers. The data shows the following:

· African Americans are stopped at over twice their representation in the population for non-hazardous violations – violations where officers have the most discretion (34.6% compared with 14.3%).
· African Americans are stopped at rates greater than their representation in the
population in every census track in the city except one – track 7.
· African Americans are 2.2 times as likely and Latinos are twice as likely to be searched following a traffic stop as white motorists.
· African Americans and Latinos are twice as likely to be detained for 30 minutes or longer with one out of every 10 stops of African American and Latino motorists resulting in a detention of 30 or more minutes.
· Even in situations where no search is conducted, African Americans and Latinos are still significantly more likely than white motorists to be subjected to extended detentions.
· Despite these dramatic disparities, Sacramento police officers are no more likely to find contraband as a result of searching African Americans and Latinos.
· Sacramento Police Officers in large numbers did not fill out data collection forms as required by departmental policy and the City Council. Report indicates that underreporting was as high as 50%.

“When the Sacramento Police Department began data collection, it showed leadership, however, the SPD must take the next step and address the problem of racial profiling with a real solution,” said Mark Schlosberg, Police Practice Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California. “Despite months of discussions and numerous recommendations from community members, this year's report is nearly identical to last year’s. The author of the report, USC Professor Howard Greenwald, continues to explain away dramatic disparities in how African Americans and Latinos are treated instead of confronting the problem.”

Francisco Estrada of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund added: “We disagree with the conclusions of the report. We don’t believe that the SPD is a racist police force or that rogue cops are running around. But the data does show that there is a problem and if we just stick our heads in the sand the problem won’t go away.”

In efforts to address racial profiling, the civil rights organizations are urging the Sacramento City Council to adopt the following policy changes:

1. Adopt a clear policy prohibiting racial profiling. The City Council should require the Department to adopt a new policy clearly prohibiting racial profiling. This policy should be modeled on language used by the U.S. Department of Justice in its consent decrees with Los Angeles and the New Jersey State Police and used in the POST training materials. The policy should make it clear that Sacramento Police Officers should not use race (to any extent or degree) in determining who to stop, search, interrogate, detain, or arrest “unless race was provided as a specific descriptor of a specific person in a specific crime.” The policy should also make it clear that violations of this policy will lead to discipline.

2. Adopt clear audit mechanisms and consequences for failure to collect data. The gross underreporting of stops and searches by Sacramento police officers is truly disturbing and unacceptable. Failure to accurately report data undermines the entire program and hampers efforts to effectively address racial profiling. The City Council should therefore require the department to adopt strict audit mechanisms to ensure accurate data collection, require quarterly reporting of the results of such audits, and discipline officers who fail to report stops and searches.

3. Extend data collection program. Data collection continues to serve an important function. It is essential that collection continue so that trends can be tracked over time and so that the effects of policy changes can be measured. The data collection program should therefore be made permanent. Data collection should also be expanded to include stops and searches of pedestrians and bicyclists.

4. Do not accept the conclusions of the report. The last report by Greenwald caused frustration in the community and the Department’s decision to laud the report undermined police/community relations. The Department and the City Council should therefore not accept the findings of the report, should acknowledge that the disparities in the data are disturbing, and should pledge to continue to work towards ending racial profiling.