MOTORIST-TRACKING LAW NEEDS TIME

Law enforcement agencies in Missouri have until March 1 to provide the Missouri attorney general's office with statistics on the racial makeup of motorists stopped by police officers. It will be interesting to see what those statistics show.

A law passed by the Missouri Legislature that went into effect last year requires each police agency to submit a report to the state that shows the age, race and gender of every driver or pedestrian stopped by police officers or state troopers.

The law's purpose is to prevent police from targeting people because of their race, something referred to as racial profiling.

The Missouri attorney general's office will provide the information it receives from the police agencies in an annual report to the legislature and to the governor. Law enforcement departments that fail to file the reports stand the chance of losing state funding.

As of a week ago, only a few local law enforcement agencies had compiled information for their first report, but the statistics that had been gathered didn't reflect any surprises.

In Cape Girardeau -- between Aug. 28 and Dec. 31, the period in 2000 that the law was in effect -- 86 percent of drivers stopped were white, and 11.5 percent were black. In Perry County, of 803 people stopped, 690 were white and 95 were black.

It is apparent by the numbers compiled by just those two agencies that the ratio of whites to blacks stopped by police pretty well reflects local racial demographics.

The numbers collected so far in Cape Girardeau and Perry County give no indication of discrimination against any racial group.

But statistics from across the state are yet to be submitted, and until all of those numbers are in it would be premature to reach any conclusions on whether police should be required to continue to gather the information on traffic stops.

Particularly telling will be statistics for the state's two metropolitan areas -- St. Louis and Kansas City -- which have larger populations of minorities.

While most law enforcement personnel dislike the requirement of collecting the data and believe it is a waste of time, the state would be wise to keep the law in effect for at least a couple of more years to allow time for any discriminatory numbers to surface.

And if they should, this will allow time to do something about it in those areas where the discrepancies are obvious.