Panel told police fail to end racial profiling

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, September 20, 2008

By Bruce Landis

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Eight years after studies began suggesting that race affects which cars Rhode Island police stop and search, racial profiling continues because the police haven’t acted to end the practice, witnesses told the state branch of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights yesterday.

Civil rights advocates said they want legislation to restrict some police practices, and outside experts suggested ways that Rhode Island can deal with the continuing problem. What’s also needed, speakers said, is a way to identify the officers who are inappropriately stopping and searching minority drivers.

Most of the police chiefs testifying at the hearing repeated past assertions that they don’t tolerate discriminatory enforcement and that they are working hard with civil rights groups to solve the problem, largely through better training for officers.

“The problem of racial profiling is still going on,â€