Rights Groups Applaud Introduction of Senate Bill to Prohibit Racial Profiling

Law Would Prohibit Profiling by Law Enforcement Based on Race, National Origin, Religion or Ethnicity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Keith Rushing, Rights Working Group, 202.591.3305, 202.557.4291 krushing@rightsworkinggroup.org<mailto:krushing@rightsworkinggroup.org>

October 7, 2011, Washington, D.C. -- Rights Working Group, a coalition of more than 300 human rights and civil liberties organizations, applauds the introduction in the U.S. Senate of the End Racial Profiling Act of 2011, S. 1670--a bill that would prohibit racial profiling by law enforcement.
 
The bill was introduced Thursday by U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Homeland Security Subcommittee, and was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
 
“Passing federal legislation that would prohibit law enforcement on the local, state and federal level from engaging in profiling based on race, national origin, religion or ethnicity would protect tens of millions of people in this country from the daily dehumanization and humiliation of being singled out by police based on their appearance, or ethnic, racial or religious identity,” said Margaret Huang, executive director of Rights Working Group.  
 
“We commend Senator Cardin, the sponsor of this bill, for his courage and leadership in making the issue of racial profiling a top priority deserving of federal legislation.”
 
The bill’s co-sponsors include: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, (D-CT), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-NY), Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
 
"Racial profiling is bad policy,” said Cardin. “But given the state of our budgets, it also diverts scarce resources from real law enforcement. The more resources spent investigating individuals solely because of their race or religion, the fewer resources directed at suspects who are actually demonstrating illegal behavior.”
 
Said Huang: “Leaders of police departments throughout the country consistently maintain that when police officers focus on skin color, ethnicity, or religion in deciding who to stop and investigate, they not only discriminate but divert needed resources from the investigation of actual crimes.”

The bill would prohibit the use of profiling based on race, religion, ethnicity and national origin by any federal, state, local or Indian tribal law enforcement agency. In addition, the End Racial Profiling Act would: institute mandatory training on profiling for law enforcement agents; require data collection and monitoring; create privacy protections for individuals whose data is collected; implement substantive procedures for responding to profiling complaints and a private right of action for victims of profiling.
 
The bill would also allow the attorney general to provide grants to law enforcement to encourage the implementation of best policing practices while enabling the attorney general to withhold grants from law enforcement agencies that do not comply with the act.
 
Under the End Racial Profiling Act, the attorney general would be required to submit periodic reports to Congress on any ongoing discriminatory policing practices by federal, state, local or tribal law enforcement.
 
This bill is intended to prohibit:
 
·      Stops and frisks based on race and ethnicity that led to a settlement between the city of Philadelphia and the ACLU in June, following a profiling lawsuit by eight African-American and Latino men who argued they were stopped by police solely because of their race and ethnicity.  The settlement will compel training on stops-and-frisks and for the Philadelphia Police Department and require police to collect data on all stops-and-frisks and store it in an electronic database.

·      Agencies, like the New York Police Department, from the type of surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods that began after the Sept. 11 attacks, when New York police mapped ethnic communities with its Demographics Unit, maintained a list of “ancestries of interest,” and monitored where Muslims ate, shopped and prayed.

·      States, like Alabama, from passing laws like H.B, 56 that require police in Alabama during routine traffic stops to check the immigration status of people they have “reasonable suspicion” are undocumented.

The End Racial Profiling Act has been endorsed by The Leadership Conference on Civil land Human Rights and many other civil rights organizations and coalitions.
  
  “We call on all Senators to give serious consideration to the need to prohibit discrimination by law enforcement at all levels by passing this bill,” said Huang.  “In addition, we call on President Barack Obama to support the bill to ban racial profiling as he did when he was a senator.  We look forward to U.S. Rep. John Conyers sponsoring a companion bill in the House of Representatives.”
 

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Formed in the aftermath of 9/11, Rights Working Group is a coalition of more than 300 community-based, grassroots and national organizations working to restore civil liberties and human rights protections for all people living in the U.S.