By Danae Snell
SACRAMENTO — Millions of people worldwide marched the streets in 2020 during a deadly pandemic to protest and fight against injustices that occur every day in America, including racial profiling and abuse of force on people of color.
The Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015 (RIPA) requires the California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board (CRIPAB) to release annual reports regarding racial and identity profiling in the state of California.
This week, (CRIPAB) released its fourth annual report, which “contains an analysis of the nearly 4 million vehicle and pedestrian stops conducted by California’s 15 largest law enforcement agencies in 2019.”
https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/ripa/ripa-board-report-2020.pdf
Data from the report found that the individuals who were perceived as Black had the highest proportion of their stops (21 percent) for “reasonable suspicion” while those who were perceived as Middle Eastern or South Asian had the lowest (4 percent).
The report also discovered that those who were perceived as Black or Hispanic were more likely to have force used against them as compared to those perceived as White.
A key discovery revealed that although people of color were 2.5 times more likely to be searched, data showed they had lower search discovery rates compared to individuals who were perceived as White.
This report also “examines civilian complaint data, provides recommendations from the Board, and shares best practices in a number of areas, including on bias-free policing policies, bias by proxy and crisis intervention, and training.”
The purpose of the report is to join the conversation on this issue by examining data, conducting research, analyzing policy recommendations, and discovering new means to hold law enforcement accountable.
The ultimate goal is to use this information to “help give communities, legislators, and law enforcement tools for innovative and critically-needed action.”
The data from the report will not only be released to the public, but it will also “be used by our profession to evaluate our practices as we continue to strive for police services that are fair and impartial,” according to Chief David Swing, co-chair of the Board and Past-President of the California Police Chiefs Association.
Chief Swing hopes the report will help build a stronger relationship with community members insofar as “successful policing outcomes are founded in strong community partnerships.”
Analyzing data on the topic will not easily solve the issue, however, according to California Attorney General and soon-to-be U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, “The more data we have about policing in our state, the more targeted and precise we can be in our reform and interventions.”
The information and statistics are placed into several different characteristics based on the “peace officers’ perceptions of the demographics of stopped individuals.”
This information includes various characteristics such as race or ethnicity, gender, age, disability status, English fluency, and LGBTQ identity.
The findings of this report does not speak for all law enforcement agencies, but it does shed some light on an issue in need of further discussion.
Danae Snell is a senior at Sacramento State majoring in Criminal Justice and is from Salinas, California.
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