STATISTICS WON'T TELL THE STORY, CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROFESSOR SAYS

Across the nation, lawmakers are looking to gather statistics to come to grips with the issue of racial profiling.

Lawmakers in Missouri, Illinois and 13 other states have introduced measures to require police agencies to keep statistics regarding traffic stops in an effort to expose any instances of racial profiling. A bill in Congress would require the nation's attorney general to conduct a study of traffic stops and report the findings to Congress within two years.

The Illinois House approved a bill earlier this month that would require state police officers to record the race of drivers pulled over for traffic stops and whether the vehicles were searched.

North Carolina so far is the only state to have enacted a bill addressing racial profiling. It requires its state police agency to record data on traffic stops.

The growing efforts of lawmakers to order up statistics concerns Southeast Missouri State University criminal justice assistant professor Dr. Milo Miller.

Miller previously worked as a lawyer and state police officer in Illinois.

Miller doesn't believe the keeping of statistical records would demonstrate whether or not a police officer stopped a motorist solely because of his or her race.

The criminal justice professor stressed that he isn't defending racial profiling. "Racial profiling is illegal," he said.

"The U.S. Supreme Court says it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment," said Miller.

The Supreme Court, he said, has made it clear that officers can't use race as a basis for stopping a vehicle.

But requiring police agencies to report statistics concerning the race and ethnicity of drivers that they pull over doesn't assure an accurate picture on the issue of racial profiling, Miller said.

There is always the possibility that police officers might falsify reports for fear that any traffic stops of minority drivers would be used against them, he said.

Requiring such reports also could interfere with the legitimate discretion of police officers in making traffic stops, Miller said. Officers, he said, might become reluctant to pull over some motorists for fear of being accused of racial profiling.

It could encourage officers and departments to institute quotas to pull over an equal number of white and minority motorists, he said.

Some of the legislation wants to take into account the minority population in an area. But Miller said such figures won't account for the minority drivers who are just passing through an area.

In many cases, officers don't know the race of a motorist before they pull the driver over to the side of the road, Miller said.

That's particularly true at night or in bad weather, he said. Statistics, said Miller, can't show what the officer was thinking in advance of the traffic stop.

Legislation can't address all of the factors that may go into an officer's decision to stop a motorist, Miller said.

The U.S. Supreme Court had made it clear that racial discrimination can't be proved by statistical evidence, he said.

Ultimately, he said, the issue of racial profiling only can be addressed on a case-by- case basis.