An analysis of data collected in the initial year of a state law designed to measure and control discriminatory law enforcement in Illinois points to the need to strengthen the law, a coalition of civil rights and civil liberties groups told an Illinois House Committee in Springfield today. Speaking at a hearing of the House Judiciary II - Criminal Law - Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and other organizations called on legislators to adopt a series of proposals that strengthen the ability of law enforcement leadership to identify evidence of racial profiling, evidence that those leaders can then act upon in an appropriate fashion. The proposed legislation, as an example, would make the system of data collection permanent - a suggestion advanced this past summer by Governor Rod Blagojevich. In addition, the legislation - known as the Illinois Traffic Stop Statistical Study of 2006 - also expands the type of information to be collected by police regarding interactions with civilians, including the recording of the ethnicity of individuals subjected to pedestrian stop and frisk searches by police, whether a driver refuses to consent to a search of his car, whether police searches result in the discovery of contraband, whether canine sniff dogs were used and the ethnicity of those whose cars were subjected to a canine sniff. The 2006 Act also allows IDOT to establish consequences for police departments that fail to transmit data in time for inclusion in the IDOT report. More than 5% of law enforcement agencies did not report the data they collected for inclusion in the first year’s report.

“The evidence from the first year of data collection demonstrates that persons of color remain the target for traffic stops in our state,� said Harvey Grossman, Legal Director of the ACLU of Illinois. “ Digging down in the data suggests that there is a need for even more comprehensive information in order to ensure that racial bias is not a component of law enforcement decisions in our state. The proposed legislation being discussed by the House Committee today provides a complete set of tools for law enforcement leaders to measure and monitor the activities of officers on the beat. This is a step that we need to take in order to protect all the citizens of our State from unnecessary stops and harassment by police.�

A review of the data released this past summer by the Illinois Department of Transportation makes clear that racial profiling is still a problem across the state. About two-thirds of police departments in suburban DuPage County reported stopping a disproportionate number of drivers of color. Statistics released by the Chicago Police Department revealed that officers in Chicago stopped minority drivers at a rate 15% higher than their driving-age population. A closer examination of the data found that CPD officers stopped African-American drivers at a rate 29% higher than their driving-age population.

Consent searches - where an officer asks and is granted permission to search a car by the driver – also were identified as a problem. In the Chicago suburb of Evanston, police conducted 76 consent searches during the time covered by the data collection - with more than three-quarters of those conducted on the cars of ethnic minority drivers. The ACLU of Illinois and other organizations appearing today said that these statistics suggest the need for further data collection and analysis by the State of Illinois. Other organizations and individuals joining the ACLU of Illinois in support of the legislation include the Black Women Lawyers Association, the Cook County Bar Association, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Rainbow PUSH, and Professor Randolph Stone.

The Illinois Police Stop Statistical Study Act of 2006 will: 1) make permanent the existing system of traffic stop data collection; 2) mandate collection, transmittal, analysis, and reporting of additional information about the “hit rate� of searches conducted by police, the use of canine sniff on an automobile, the refusal of a civilian to consent to a search and collection of data about persons who appear to be Muslim or Arab; 3) the collection and reporting of data about pedestrian stops by police; 4) the creation of a specific consequence for law enforcement entities that do not report their collected data to IDOT; 5) allow IDOT to identify other necessary data to be collected not mandated by statute; 6) require a separate analysis of data for each racial or ethnic group; and, 7) mandate that IDOT consult annually with police and community groups about the data collection and analysis process.

“Illinois has an opportunity to take the lead in combating racial profiling across the nation,� added Grossman. “The General Assembly ought to seize the initiative.�