Resolutions

Police Contacts

Condemning Racial and Ethnic Profiling in Traffic Stops
Submitted by Highway Safety Committee

WHEREAS, according to the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration, the majority of traffic crashes are caused by moving traffic violations and kill 41,967 people a year, injure another 3.4 million persons, and cause a societal loss of $150 billion dollars a year; and

WHEREAS, intensive traffic enforcement efforts have been proven to reduce traffic crashes and increase the apprehension of criminal offenders; and

WHEREAS, law enforcement agencies have seized more illegal drugs resulting from traffic enforcement than they have from undercover enforcement strategies; and

WHEREAS, traffic stops utilizing plainview and consent searches annually lead to the interdiction of millions of dollars in illegal substances and stolen property; and

WHEREAS, careful analysis of the actions and behaviors of criminal offenders who use motor vehicles in the commission of crimes reveals commonalties which, after the traffic stop, can be used to develop probable cause; and

WHEREAS, such strategies, when based upon articulable suspicion that an infraction of the law has been committed, have been upheld as constitutionally appropriate by the U.S. Supreme Court; and

WHEREAS, traffic stops should not be made on the basis of the motorist’s race, ethnicity, or economic status, but rather on articulable suspicion or actual violation of a law; and

WHEREAS, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and professional law enforcement organizations' training courses teach that biased or unprofessional enforcement practices are prohibited and will not be condoned; now therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the International Association of Chiefs of Police urges all law enforcement agencies to utilize the “IACP Guiding Principles of Proactive Traffic Enforcement” when developing strategies for crash prevention and crime control; and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, all law enforcement agencies are urged to examine their interdiction strategies and their mission and value statements, training programs, field supervision, evaluation of citizen complaints and traffic stop data and other efforts to ensure that racial or ethic-based traffic stops are not being employed within their agencies and that all citizens are treated with the utmost courtesy and respect when they encounter our officers; and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the United States Department of Justice are urged to form a closer partnership for the purpose of providing financial support to state, county, municipal law enforcement agencies for training programs or in-car audio and video systems, and to assist in the voluntary collection of appropriate data relative to this resolution.
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