Max Smith, 212-558-5371

msmith@nul.org

Root out Injustice in the Criminal Justice System:

A Statement by National Urban League President Hugh B. Price

New York, NY, March 12, 2001–Following is a statement by National Urban League President Hugh B. Price in response to a Justice Department report that shows Blacks and Latinos are twice as likely as whites to report the use of force in encounters with police, and were more likely than whites to be stopped, searched, handcuffed or ticketed.

Included in the statement are measures the League believes the Attorney General must enact to combat this problem.

"The National Urban League welcomes the findings of the Justice Department report that shows the numbers of African Americans and Latinos targeted for police action are disproportionate to the numbers of whites.

The report bears out what we have long heard from our constituents and other civil rights groups, even before Feb. 25, 1999, when we convened a broad cross-section of civil rights and community leaders in a press conference to underscore our demand for federal action on this and related issues.

The League believes that the Justice Department statistics point to a much larger and endemic problem between blacks, Latinos and other people of color and local law enforcement officials. The Justice Department must now take a leadership role in addressing them.

The League does not believe that further study is necessary, instead we recommend that the Attorney General implement the following actions as a part of the solution to ending all discriminatory law enforcement practices, including racial profiling, police brutality and abuse, as well as the disparities that exist in the arrests and sentencing of blacks, whites and Latinos:

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Root out Injustice in the Criminal Justice System…Page Two

• Congress should immediately pass, and the President should sign, the Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act. Often referred to as the "Driving While Black" bill, this legislation would require the Attorney General to gather data on law enforcement practices at traffic stops to determine whether, how and to what degree traffic stops are racially or ethnically motivated. In addition, the bill would provide grants to law enforcement agencies for the collection of traffic stop data that may also be used for their own internal audits. It would also protect the privacy of both the law enforcement official and the individual subject to the stop.

• Enact the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act (LETIA). Introduced in the 106^th Congress as H.R. 3981, this legislation provides incentives for local police organizations to voluntarily adopt performance-based standards to ensure that incidents of misconduct will be minimized through appropriate management, training and oversight protocols. The bill also provides police officers with the tools necessary to work with their communities and to enhance their professional growth and education.

• Promulgate a series of "best practices" guidelines in personnel and firearms matters based on the experience of police departments that have successfully reduced crime with a minimum of abuse. These best practices, aimed at reducing racial profiling and police brutality and abuse, should be prepared with the help of elected officials, law enforcement officials, police unions and civil rights, civil liberties and community leaders.

• Require local police departments that receive federal assistance to institute and adhere to these best practices, or effective variations of them, as a condition for continued federal funding.

• Suspend federal funding of those local departments that experience and fail to address serious problems of racial profiling and police brutality and abuse.