Pubdate: Thu, 14 Mar 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Section: New York Region
Author: Al Baker

COMMISSIONER BANS PROFILING USING RACE BY THE POLICE

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has issued a strongly worded order to 
his top commanders against the use of racial profiling as a tool for 
arrests, car stops or any other law enforcement actions.

Although the Police Department has never acknowledged that it engages in 
racial profiling — the use of race, ethnicity or national origin as clues 
to criminality — Mr. Kelly said he put out the order to make the 
department's position clear among officers and the public.

Police officials said the order, the first of its kind issued by the 
department, takes admonitions from its existing guidelines, as well as from 
legal rulings on the issue, and puts them in one policy statement so that 
no one will be confused about the department's stance.

"I think this has been the policy all along, but it is important to state 
it in written form," Mr. Kelly said. "This has been an area of concern to 
members of minority communities in the past. There is at least the 
perception, in some people's minds, that racial profiling goes on, and we 
want to have a clear statement of what the policy of this department is as 
far as racial profiling is concerned."

As the United States customs commissioner in the Clinton administration, 
Mr. Kelly gained a reputation for taking action to curb racial profiling. 
At the time, critics said the Customs Service unfairly singled out black 
and Hispanic people for searches at airports and other ports of entry.

But Mr. Kelly studied the issue in 1999, and was widely credited with 
finding more efficient ways to intercept contraband at border crossings 
than using racial profiling, a practice President Clinton called "morally 
indefensible." Mr. Kelly developed objective criteria for customs agents to 
identify odd behavior among people crossing the border, with an eye toward 
stopping drug smuggling.

Mr. Kelly, who said he was close to naming someone to direct and possibly 
revamp the way the Police Department trains officers, noted yesterday, 
"Obviously, the issue of racial profiling is something that has to be 
addressed in the training environment."

He repeatedly stressed that the order, which was made public yesterday and 
will be read at precinct station house roll calls and pinned to bulletin 
boards, was not based on any failures he had noticed in departmental 
procedure or practice.

But it became apparent after the fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999 
that many black and Hispanic New Yorkers believed that the department 
engaged in racial profiling, with many suggesting that it was Mr. Diallo's 
race that led the police to approach him. And the state attorney general's 
office found that year that blacks and Hispanics were much more likely than 
whites to be stopped and frisked.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, 
hailed the new policy as "an important and long overdue step forward" for 
an agency that, she charged, had previously refused to take a clear stand 
against racial profiling even while controversies over the issue have roiled.

"Racial profiling has always been illegal, because it violates the U.S. and 
State Constitution," Ms. Lieberman said. "But this policy lays the basis 
for disciplinary proceedings against officers who engage in the practice, 
so it adds an additional layer for enforcement."

The one-page statement orders commanding officers of precincts to establish 
a self-inspection system. And it directs the department's quality-assurance 
division to see that officers comply with the order. Compstat, the 
computer-based crime-tracking system, will be also used to measure compliance.

David A. Harris, a professor of law and values at the University of Toledo 
College of Law and the author of "Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial 
Profiling Cannot Work" (The New Press, 2002), said a number of other cities 
and states had put policies against racial profiling into writing in the 
past two years.

"In itself, the New York policy is not unusual," Professor Harris said. 
"What is important here is that the N.Y.P.D. is a force that, for years, 
has refused even in the face of very clear evidence to acknowledge the 
existence of racial profiling. This policy shows them facing the issue head 
on, and Ray Kelly is the man who can do it."
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