Texas NAACP Moves to End Racial Profiling - Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Calls for Congressional Hearings

If you’re Black and driving through Texas, police are almost twice as likely to pull you over and search your car than if you were White, a new study shows. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) this week called for congressional hearings to examine just how bad racial profiling is across the nation. Statewide, Blacks are 1.6 times as likely to be stopped by police than their White counterparts, according to the study, conducted by the Steward Research Group, which surveyed more than 400 Texas law enforcement agencies. Latinos are about 1.4 times more likely to undergo such treatment, it shows. “I think the study confirms what we already knew…racial profiling is way too prevalent in this city and state, and in general. Searches are ineffective; they're not producing any desirable results,” said Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder. “We oppose all consensual searches.” Once the study was released, the Austin NAACP complained to the local police department and held workshops to educate citizens about their rights to refuse unauthorized searches. Linder said that community members should know their rights and hold police accountable. Several civil rights organizations, including the Texas NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the ACLU, requested the study in response to a Texas law passed in 2001. That law requires that law enforcement agencies document a driver’s ethnicity or race, whether a vehicle is searched, whether the search is consensual and whether there are any arrests. The study, which was released in early February, also urges police departments to start a standard reporting format for filing racial profiling matters, requiring extra information be submitted to police agencies, banning consent searches, and establishing a statewide office to file all reports. But Texas is not alone. [more]