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21ST CENTURY LAW ENFORCEMENT: HOW SMART 

POLICING TARGETS CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, 

AND HOMELAND SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 4, 2011 

Serial No. 112–76 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS ROSS, Florida 

SANDY ADAMS, Florida 

BEN QUAYLE, Arizona 

MARK AMODEI, Nevada 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

[Vacant] 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Majority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., Wisconsin, Chairman 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas, Vice-Chairman 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

SANDY ADAMS, Florida 

MARK AMODEI, Nevada 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

[Vacant] 

CAROLINE LYNCH, Chief Counsel 

BOBBY VASSAR, Minority Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

NOVEMBER 4, 2011 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security .......................................................................... 3 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Acting Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, 

and Homeland Security ....................................................................................... 4 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 6 

WITNESSES 

Hilary O. Shelton, Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy, and Director, NAACP Washington Bureau 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 11 

Heather Mac Donald, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 18 

Edward Conlon, former NYPD Detective and Author 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 22 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 25 

David A. Harris, Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Research, University 

of Pittsburgh Law 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 31 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 33 

Jiles H. Ship, National President, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 41 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 44 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Acting Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security ................................................... 1 

(1) 

21ST CENTURY LAW ENFORCEMENT: HOW 

SMART POLICING TARGETS CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR 

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:05 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Bob Goodlatte 

(Acting Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Smith, Lungren, Marino, 

Gowdy, Scott, Conyers, Chu, Jackson Lee, and Quigley. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Caroline Lynch, Subcommittee Chief 

Counsel; Sam Ramer, Counsel; Arthur Radford Baker, Counsel; 

Sarah Allen, Counsel; Lindsay Hamilton, Clerk; (Minority) Bobby 

Vassar, Subcommittee Chief Counsel, Keenan Keller, Counsel; and 

Veronica Eligan, Professional Staff Member. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Subcommittee will come to order. I want to 

welcome everybody to today’s hearing on ‘‘21st Century Law Enforcement: How Smart Policing Targets Criminal Behavior.’’ I 

would especially like to welcome our witnesses, and thank you for 

joining us today, and apologize for the delay. In fact, we have another vote pending. We are going to try to get a little bit of our 

business done, and then we will go do that vote and come back 

again. 

So I am joined today by the distinguished Ranking Member of 

the Subcommittee Bobby Scott, and the Chairman of the full Committee, Congressman Smith, and the Chairman emeritus of the full 

Committee and Ranking Member John Conyers of Michigan. 

I have an opening statement, and I am going to submit that for 

the record and yield to the gentleman from Virginia for his opening 

remarks so we can move the process along. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goodlatte follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security 

I want to welcome everyone to today’s hearing on 21st Century Law Enforcement: 

How Smart Policing Targets Criminal Behavior. 

The past 20 years has seen a dramatic decrease in crime levels across the United 

States. According to the FBI, violent crime in the U.S. has dropped by almost 50% 

2 

1FBI, Crime in the United States: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/ 

crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl01.xls 2Lueck, Thomas J. (December 31, 2007). ‘‘Low Murder Rate Brings New York Back to ’63.’’ 

New York Times. 3The Virginia State Police’s ‘‘Crime in Virginia’’ and Department of Criminal Justice Services’ 

‘‘Virginia Crime Trends 2000–2009.’’ 4 Chan, Sewell (August 13, 2007). ‘‘Why Did Crime Fall in New York City?’’ New York Times. 

5Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies, U.S. Dept. of 

Justice, June 2003. http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/guidancelonlrace.pdf 6 ACLU, ‘‘Mapping the FBI’’: http://www.aclu.org/mapping-fbi-uncovering-abusive-surveillanceand-racial-profiling 

in the last 20 years.1 In some cities, like New York, the decline has been even more 

dramatic. The number of murders in NYC has dropped below 700 a year, compared 

to over 2000 a year in the 1990’s, levels not seen since 1963.2 According to two recent Virginia law enforcement reports 3, violent crime in Virginia fell dramatically 

over the last decade, 19 percent from 2000 to 2009. That’s actually a sharper drop 

than the national average of 15 percent over the same time period. 

Property crime rates in Virginia have also fallen significantly, 12 percent over the 

decade. Much of this decline has occurred during a severe economic downturn. The 

old liberal theories of crime blamed ‘‘root social causes’’, such as poverty and joblessness, for criminal behavior, and recommended release and job training instead of 

prison. Those old, 20th century assumptions have been proven wrong. But many 

lawmakers and criminologists now credit improved police computer-based crime 

fighting tactics like CompStat, longer prison sentences, and more offenders in custody.4

However, despite the gains in public safety enjoyed by citizens in America, some 

continue to criticize police departments across the country for enforcing the law unfairly based on race. Even though the Justice Department banned any use of ‘‘racial 

profiling’’ in 2003 5, some continue to allege that the police have gained their success 

by targeting certain populations.6 Meanwhile, many argue that taking ethnic and 

racial trends to account in policing is a rational and efficient method of allocating 

investigatory resources to safeguard the security of all. 

In a polyglot society such as the United States, there is no single dominant ethnic 

identity. Americans come from many countries, many religions, and many 

ethnicities. Because of the vast array of cultures here, it would be hard for us to 

expect that the demographics of the criminal justice system would exactly mirror 

those of society. For example, we would not be surprised to find out that the percentage of male inmates is much greater than their representation in society. According to the Bureau of Prisons, 93.5% of the Federal prisoners in the country are 

men, but men are a slight minority in the United States at 49% of the population. 

Should we in Congress then argue that the police and the courts discriminate 

against men? Of course not. We understand, as citizens, that the criminal justice 

system targets criminals and tries hard not to prosecute the innocent. That means 

that the prison population will reflect the population of criminals, and not the exact 

demographics of average citizens. 

The stunning crime decline we have enjoyed also cuts against an argument about 

racial bias in policing. If, in fact, the police where unfairly singling out black and 

Hispanic criminals, while allowing white criminals to roam free, the crime rate, I 

would think, would be higher, because the bulk of criminals would be at liberty due 

to the unproductive police focus on race. I would also like to point out that currently, according to the Bureau of Prisons, the majority of inmates in the Federal 

system are white. 

So, rather than rest on our laurels, we on the crime subcommittee want to continue this decline in crime. So we should look at the reasons for this decline, and 

encourage common-sense tactics and laws that allow the police and the courts to do 

their jobs. I don’t think that it helps the citizens of this country to have the police 

using political correctness as a guide in deciding whether to arrest a criminal. A 

criminal is a criminal whether he (or she) is white, black or polka-dot. Political correctness hamstrings the police, wastes money, and contributes to lawlessness. 

The City of LA has been under a Justice Department consent decree for over a 

decade. It has spent millions of dollars, and has had to pull officers off patrol, to 

fill out paperwork to keep track of the ethnicity and race of every person with which 

they come in contact. Even though LA has made substantial progress of improving 

the way they run their department, Eric Holder’s Justice Department has resisted 

releasing Los Angeles from their onerous probation. Is this because there is truly 

a problem with law enforcement, or is this a political tactic to gain points on the 

left by criticizing police? Are the statistics nationwide generated from unfair policVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:32 Mar 01, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\CRIME\110411\71056.000 HJUD1 PsN: 71056
3 

ing, or are the charges merely a way to question the law enforcement-driven model 

of crime reduction? It is an issue that continues to generate debate. 

Today, we will look at how modern, 21st century law enforcement has improved, 

and reduced many of the problems we were concerned about back in the 20th century. As the crime rate continues to fall, we should make sure that our tactics continue to evolve and target criminals, regardless of race, color or creed, so that we 

may protect Americans regardless of race, color or creed. 

I look forward to hearing more about this issue and thank all of our witnesses 

for participating in today’s hearing. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for calling the hearing. 

During a time when State and local governments are faced with 

shrinking budgets and the continuing challenge of maintaining the 

public safety infrastructure, the topic of smart policing makes 

sense for oversight by the Crime Subcommittee. 

The fundamental question faced by law enforcement agencies is 

what practices or tactics represent the best utilization of scarce 

agency resources. For quite some time there has been a discussion 

of the practice of community-based policing by law enforcement 

agencies. Though the strategy takes many forms, it seems that 

there is substantial agreement that having the involvement and 

trust of local communities is a critical factor in successful law enforcement. 

Much of the focus on community policing has been driven by the 

sometimes adversarial relationship between the police and communities of color. To some degree this debate over racial profiling and 

the use of race by law enforcement has become a central element 

in the relationship between the police and the minority community. 

Over the past two decades, tension between police and minority 

communities have grown as allegations of racial profiling by law 

enforcement agents, sometimes supported by data-collection efforts, 

have increased in number and frequency. 

The arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates demonstrated 

that the combination of race and law enforcement represents a 

volatile mix across all strata of the minority community. The real 

problem is not when the search turns up—the real problem is not 

when a search turns up contraband, but when a pattern of racebased searches creates a climate of harassment in the entire community, including law-abiding citizens, that ultimately undermines 

the police department’s public safety mission. 

In response to these concerns, the Department of Justice under 

the past two Presidents and Members of Congress have introduced 

a variety of measures designed to eliminate the practice of racial 

profiling. When data-collection legislation was first introduced in 

1997, the racial-profiling issue was relatively straightforward in political terms. Profiling was represented by the classic pretext traffic 

stop for an African American male driver who was pulled over for 

a minor or sometimes a manufactured traffic violation, then asked 

for consent to search the vehicle. Today traffic and pedestrian stops 

have given way to even more complex concerns of airport passenger 

profiles and immigration sweeps. However, the original challenges 

represented by the traffic stop context have not been eliminated 

and, in fact, form the foundation for all other kinds of racialprofiling complaints. 

4 

As we move forward, I believe it is important to remind Members 

just how far we in Congress have come in developing bipartisan 

consensus on racial-profiling issues. On September 11, 2001, there 

was substantial empirical evidence and wide agreement among 

Americans, including President Bush and Attorney General 

Ashcroft, that racial profiling was a tragic fact of life in the minority community, and that the Federal Government should take action to end the practice. 

Data collected from California, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and 

West Virginia have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that 

African Americans and Hispanics were being stopped for routine 

traffic violations far in excess of their share of the population or 

even the rate at which populations are accused of criminal conduct. 

Incredibly this pattern existed even after law enforcement knew 

that the statistics were being gathered. Similarly the Justice Department reports found that although African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to be stopped and searched by law enforcement, they were much less likely to be found in possession of contraband. 

Law enforcement officials have similarly involved their views. 

While some take issue, most in the law enforcement community acknowledge that singling out people for heightened scrutiny based 

on their race or ethnicity can erode trust in law enforcement necessary to appropriately serve and protect those communities. 

Rather than seeking to deny the concerns of the minority community—rather than seeking to deny the concerns of minority community advocates, many law enforcement officials have joined the 

effort to create solutions and build trust in their communities. As 

a result, more than 20 States have passed bipartisan legislation 

prohibiting racial profiling and/or mandating data collection on 

stops and searches, and hundreds of individual jurisdictions have 

voluntarily commenced to collect data. Congress itself is actually— 

was actually poised to pass racial-profiling legislation in the fall of 

2001 with the express support of President Bush before the terrorist attacks of 2001 changed the legislative climate. 

This hearing is another step in creating a record to rebuild the 

bipartisan legislative coalition pioneered by President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft. I hope the question that we answer 

today—the question I hope we answer today is whether the reliance on racial, ethnic or religious classification is smart policing in 

the 21st century, and I hope the answer that we find is no. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The amount of time remaining in the vote is 

about 7 minutes, so we will go ahead and recess the Committee, 

and cast this vote, and return as quickly as possible and resume 

the hearing. We will stand in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Subcommittee will reconvene, and I will 

take the opportunity to give my opening statement. The past 20 

years have seen a dramatic increase in crime levels across the 

United States—a decrease rather, a dramatic decrease, in crime 

levels across the United States. According to the FBI, violent crime 

in the U.S. has dropped by almost 50 percent in the last 20 years. 

5 

In some cities like New York, the decline has been even more dramatic. The number of murders in New York City has dropped 

below 700 a year compared to over 2,000 a year in the 1990’s, levels not seen since 1963. 

According to two recent Virginia law enforcement reports, violent 

crime in Virginia fell dramatically over the last decade, 19 percent 

from 2000 to 2009. That is actually a sharper drop than the national average of 15 percent over the same time period. Property 

crime rates in Virginia have also fallen significantly, 12 percent 

over the decade. Much of this decline has occurred during a severe 

economic downturn. Many lawmakers and criminologists now credit improved police computer-based crimefighting tactics like 

CompStat, longer prison sentences, and more offenders in custody. 

However, despite the gains in public safety enjoyed by citizens in 

America, some continue to criticize police departments across the 

country for enforcing the law unfairly based on race. Even though 

the Justice Department banned any use of racial profiling in 2003, 

some continue to allege that the police have gained their success 

by targeting certain populations. Meanwhile others argue that taking ethnic and racial trends into account in policing is a rational 

and efficient method of allocating investigatory resources to safeguard the security of all. 

In a polyglot society such as the United States, there is no single 

dominant ethnic identity. Americans come from many countries, 

many religions, many ethnicities. Because of the vast array of cultures here, it would be hard for us to expect that the demographics 

of the criminal justice system would exactly mirror those of society. 

For example, we would not be surprised to find that the percentage 

of male inmates is much greater than their representation in society. According to the Bureau of Prisons, 93.5 percent of the Federal 

prisoners in the country are men, but men are a slight minority in 

the United States at 49 percent of the population. 

Should we in Congress then argue that the police and courts discriminate against men? Of course not. We understand as citizens 

that the criminal justice system targets criminals and tries hard 

not to prosecute the innocent. That means that the prison population will reflect the population of criminals and not the exact demographics of average citizens. 

So rather than rest on our laurels, we on the Crime Subcommittee want to continue this decline in crime. So we should 

look at the reasons for this decline and encourage commonsense 

tactics and laws that allow the police and the courts to do their 

jobs. 

I don’t think that it helps the citizens of this country to have the 

police using political correctness as a guide to deciding whether to 

arrest a criminal. A criminal is a criminal whether he or she is 

White, Black or some other race. Political correctness hamstrings 

the police, wastes money and contributes to lawlessness. 

The city of Los Angeles has been under a Justice Department 

consent decree for over a decade. It has spent millions of dollars 

and has had to pull officers off patrol to fill out paperwork to keep 

track of the ethnicity and race of every person with which they 

come into contact. Even though L.A. Has made substantial 

progress improving the way they run their department, Eric HoldVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:32 Mar 01, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\CRIME\110411\71056.000 HJUD1 PsN: 71056
6 

er’s Justice Department has resisted releasing Los Angeles from 

their probation. Are the statistics nationwide generated from unfair 

policing, or are the charges merely a way to question the law enforcement-driven model of crime reduction? It is an issue that continues to generate debate. 

Today we will look at how modern, 21st-century law enforcement 

has improved and reduced many of the problems we were concerned about back in the 20th century. As the crime rate continues 

to fall, we should make sure that our tactics continue to evolve and 

target criminals regardless of race, color or creed so that we may 

protect Americans regardless of race, color or creed. I look forward 

to hearing more about this issue and thank all of our witnesses for 

participating in today’s hearing. 

And it’s now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of 

the full Committee, the gentleman from Michigan Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte. 

And I want to begin by expressing our appreciation to the Chairman of the Subcommittee Jim Sensenbrenner on the agreement 

that he got with the Chairman of the full Committee to hold this 

hearing. I think it is a very important hearing, and I am looking 

forward to many of the witnesses who have been here—I think everybody has been here before. There are no newcomers before us 

today. I am glad to see you all here. 

Let me approach this from—and Chairman Goodlatte provoked 

this thought. He gave us the percentage of men incarcerated, but 

he didn’t give us the percentage of African American males incarcerated as opposed to White. That is the problematic issue, and I 

am not sure that it can be rationalized as easily as you did that 

of men to women in terms of incarceration rates. It is two completely different problems. 

Now, back in the year 2000—well, even before 2001. In 1997, 47 

of the 50 States of the Union had adopted a measure that had been 

before the House Judiciary Committee a number of times. It was 

a data-collection bill called the Traffic Statistic Studies Act, and it 

finally passed the House under suspension in 1997. But 47 of the 

50 States, 47 of the 50 States, all but 3, had already adopted within their borders some version of this same bill, because the one 

that I am referring to did pass the Committee and the House, but 

it did not pass the Senate, nor was it signed into law. 

Now, let us forward to President Bush and his Attorney General 

George Ashcroft. Incredibly—and I have quite a bit of data collected in this Committee on the things that President Bush did 

that I not only didn’t agree with, but that I thought were improper—but it was the same President George Bush in his State 

of the Union Address that said the following, quote—this is his 

first State of the Union Address, February 27, 2001—racial 

profiling is wrong, and we will end it in America. In so doing we 

will not hinder the work of our Nation’s brave police officers. They 

protect us every day, often at great risk. But by stopping the 

abuses of a few, we will add to the public confidence our police officers earn and deserve. 

And so within 6 months, the President—we introduced a—well, 

wait a minute. Within 6 months the Justice Department under Attorney General John Ashcroft issued guidelines designed to end raVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:32 Mar 01, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\CRIME\110411\71056.000 HJUD1 PsN: 71056
7 

cial profiling by Federal agents in routine police work, but the 

guidance allowed large loopholes for the use of race and ethnicity. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The gentleman is recognized for 1 additional 

minute. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, sir. 

It allowed loopholes for identification of terrorism suspects and 

for border enforcement purposes. 

So in conclusion what I am suggesting in my opening remarks 

is that we made great efforts at closing the door on racial profiling, 

but the events of September 11, 2001, reopened this whole subject. 

In a way we have slipped backwards, and that is why the hearing 

is so important, and that is why I am glad that all of you panelists 

are here today to continue this discussion. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman. 

And it is now my pleasure to introduce today’s witnesses. Hilary 

O. Shelton currently serves as the vice president for advocacy and 

director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau. Prior to serving as director to the NAACP Washington bureau, Mr. Shelton served as 

Federal liaison assistant director to the Government Affairs Department of the United Negro College Fund in Washington, D.C. 

Prior to working for UNCF, Mr. Shelton served as the Federal policy program director to the United Methodist Church’s Social Justice Advocacy Agency. 

Mr. Shelton serves on a number of national boards of directors, 

including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Center for 

Democratic Renewal, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the 

Congressional Black Caucus Institute, among many others. 

Mr. Shelton holds degrees in political science, communications 

and legal studies from Howard University, the University of Missouri in St. Louis, and Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, respectively. 

Ms. Heather Mac Donald is a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Ms. Mac 

Donald’s writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the 

Washington Post, the New York Times, the New Republic, Partisan 

Review, the New Criterion, Public Interest and Academic Questions. She is also the author of several books, including The Burden 

of Bad Ideas, Are Cops Racist?, and The Immigration Solution: A 

Better Plan Than Today’s. 

Ms. Mac Donald has clerked for the Honorable Stephen 

Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; has been 

an attorney advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency; and a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City. In 1998, she was 

appointed to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Task Force on the City University of New York. 

Ms. Mac Donald received her B.A. in English from Yale University, graduating with a Mellon fellowship to Cambridge University, 

where she earned an M.A. in English. Her J.D. is from Stanford 

University Law School. 

Mr. Edward Conlon retired as a detective in the New York Police 

Department this past August after serving 17 years with the department. For 14 of those years, he was assigned to the South 

8 

Bronx. He was promoted to detective in 2001. He also served as liaison for the NYPD Intelligence Division to the National Police of 

Jordan where he lectured at the Royal Police Academy. 

Mr. Conlon has published numerous articles on police work and 

the community for the New Yorker, Harper’s and other periodicals. 

He is the author of two books, including Blue Blood, a family memoir of law enforcement, which was a New York Times best seller, 

and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Mr. Conlon 

is a graduate of Harvard University. 

Professor David A. Harris is distinguished faculty scholar and associate dean for research at the University of Pittsburgh School of 

Law, where he teaches criminal procedure, criminal law, evidence, 

and advanced courses in criminal justice policy and homeland security. In 1996, Professor Harris served as a member of the Civil Liberties Advisory Board to the White House Commission on Aviation 

Safety and Security. Before he began teaching in 1990, Professor 

Harris was a public defender in the Washington, D.C., area; a litigator at a law firm in Philadelphia; and law clerk to Federal Judge 

Walter K. Stapleton in Wilmington, Delaware. 

Professor Harris is the author of several books, including Profiles 

in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work; and Good Cops: 

The Case for Preventive Policing. His new book, Failed Evidence, 

will be published in September 2012. 

Professor Harris earned his bachelor of arts from Northwestern 

University, his LL.M. from Georgetown University, and his juris 

doctor from Yale Law School. 

Mr. Jiles H. Ship is current president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, NOBLE, and formerly 

served 4 years as the northern New Jersey chapter president. Mr. 

Ship started his career in law enforcement in 1985, first serving as 

an officer on the Edison Police Department, during which time he 

also served as an instructor for the Middlesex County Police Academy. He recently served as the director of public safety for the city 

of Plainfield, New Jersey. As chief executive officer of the Department of Public Safety, he oversaw the police division, fire division 

and the Office of Emergency Management. Prior to that appointment, he served in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, Division of Criminal Justice, as the special assistant to the director, 

and as a supervising State investigator, lieutenant State investigator and administrator of investigations. 

Mr. Ship is an adjunct professor at Bergen Community College 

and teaches police administration and criminal justice. He received 

his master of arts degree from Seton Hall University College of 

Education in administration and supervision and his bachelor of 

science degree in administration of justice. 

At this time we will turn to the testimony first with Mr. Shelton. 

Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF HILARY O. SHELTON, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVOCACY AND POLICY, AND DIRECTOR, NAACP 

WASHINGTON BUREAU 

Mr. SHELTON. Good morning, Mr. Goodlatte and Ranking Member Scott, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I 

9 

would also like to give my deep appreciation of the NAACP to the 

Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, who——— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Shelton, pull that mic closer and make sure 

it is turned on. 

Mr. SHELTON. I would also like to extend the deep appreciation 

of the NAACP to the Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, 

who was instrumental in arranging this hearing. 

I would also like to thank Congressman Conyers for his 

unyielding courage and support in addressing the scourge that still 

must be addressed in our society, and it is the issue of racial 

profiling; and, of course, our dear friend Congresswoman Sheila 

Jackson Lee for her support and continued leadership. 

As you mentioned, my name is Hilary Shelton, director of the 

NAACP’s Washington bureau. The Washington bureau is the Federal legislative and national public policy arm of the Nation’s oldest 

and largest grassroots-based civil rights organization. 

NAACP units throughout the country report receiving hundreds, 

if not thousands, of complaints of racial profiling each year, a practice that is unconstitutional, socially corrupting, and counterproductive to smart and effective law enforcement. 

For the record, and to avoid confusion, the operational definition 

of the term ‘‘racial profiling’’ means the practice of a law enforcement agent or agencies relying on an—in any degree on race, ethnicity, national origin or religion in selecting which individuals to 

subject to routine or spontaneous investigatory activities, or on deciding upon the scope and substance of law enforcement activity 

following the initial investigatory procedure, except when there is 

trustworthy information relevant to the locality and timeframe that 

links the person of a particular race, ethnicity, national origin or 

religion to an identified criminal incident or scheme. 

Sadly, racial profiling is being used even today at all levels of 

law enforcement. Local, State and Federal agents have all been 

shown to use racial profiling as a damaging and unnecessary 

means and tools of policing. 

To add further concern, the use of racial profiling is increasing 

as more States take stands against undocumented immigrants as 

seen in Arizona, Alabama, and as local, State and Federal authorities contend with the post-September 11th world. 

Racial profiling against people who appear to be Hispanic heritage as well as against Arabs, Muslims and South Asians has multiplied and been exacerbated by lack of responsive policy, guidance 

and education about the damage it causes. 

Even at the most global level, the United Nations Committee on 

the Elimination of Racial Discrimination highlighted the importance of combating racial profiling in its General Comment as combating racism in the administration of the criminal justice system 

from a report done August of 2005. Domestically the continued use 

of racial profiling has sadly and unfortunately undercut our communities’ trust and faith in the integrity of the American judicial 

system. 

The racially discriminatory practice of racial profiling must be 

challenged when we find it cannot drive down an interstate, when 

we cannot walk down the street, work, pray, shop, travel or even 

enter into our homes without being detained for questions by law 

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enforcement agents merely because of suspicions generated by the 

color of our skin or our physical characteristics. 

Racial profiling leads to entire communities losing confidence and 

trust in the very men and women who are meant to protect and 

serve them. As a result of racial profiling practices, it has become 

much harder for law enforcement, even those who do not engage 

in racial profiling, to do their jobs to prevent, investigate, prosecute 

or solve crimes. 

Evidence to support the prevalence of racial profiling by law enforcement officials is as voluminous as it is varied. According to a 

2004 report by Amnesty International USA, approximately 32 million Americans, a number equivalent to the population of Canada, 

report they have already been victims of racial profiling. Furthermore, prominent people speaking out against racial profiling are as 

varied as former President Bill Clinton, who called racial profiling 

a, quote, morally indefensible, deeply corrosive practice, and further stated that, quote, racial profiling is, in fact, the opposite of 

good police work where actions are based on hard facts, not stereotypes. It is wrong, it is destructive, and it must stop; and George 

W. Bush, who, on February 27, 2001, said that racial profiling is, 

quote, wrong and will end in America. In so doing we will not 

hinder the work of our Nation’s brave police officers. They protect 

us every day, often at great risk. By stopping the abuses of a few, 

who will add to the public confidence our police officers earn and 

deserve. 

At the Federal level effective anti-racial-profiling legislation has 

been introduced in the House and the Senate since 1997, and numerous hearings have been held, but to date no legislative action 

has been taken. The response of State legislatures in evidence of 

racial profiling by law enforcement agencies has been, according to 

the American Civil Liberties Union, with a few exceptions, inaction 

and a series of half measures. 

It is clear that more can and must be done to eliminate racial 

profiling. From my experience both on the policy side and anecdotal 

side, listening to NAACP adult and youth members, branch presidents and members of the national board, there are a few steps 

that need to be taken on a national level to end this scourge once 

and for all. 

First, we need a clear and effective definition of what racial 

profiling is. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. You may want to sum up your remarks. 

Mr. SHELTON. Very good. 

There are a number of things that need to be taken. And certainly as we are going to address this issue, we must first quantify 

it; that is, in order to fix a measure, you must first measure it. We 

must also retrain our police officers and must give our citizens an 

opportunity to be able to challenge these concerns when they happen in our communities. With that, we can begin to move our Nation forward and address this concern again once and for all. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Shelton. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shelton follows:] 

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Mr. GOODLATTE. I neglected to say at the beginning that all of 

your entire statements will be made a part of the record, and we 

ask that you limit your comments to 5 minutes. 

And we will now turn to Ms. Mac Donald. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF HEATHER MAC DONALD, SENIOR FELLOW, 

MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH 

Ms. MAC DONALD. My name is Heather Mac Donald. I am a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank in New York City. 

Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte and Members of the Committee, 


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for inviting me to testify today about data-driven policing. I have 

studied policing extensively, including from my book, Are Cops 

Racist? 

Since 1991, crime in New York City has dropped 80 percent. New 

York’s crime decline is unmatched anywhere in the country or in 

history. It represents the greatest public policy success of the last 

half century. The New York Police Department accomplished this 

unprecedented feat by the managerial revolution known as 

CompStat. Under CompStat, which was pioneered by Police Commissioner William Bratton in 1994, the department started analyzing crime data daily and deploying officers where crime patterns 

were emerging. If officers observed suspicious behavior in a violence-plagued area, they were expected to intervene pursuant to 

their legal authority before a crime actually occurred. Precinct commanders were held ruthlessly accountable for crime in their jurisdictions, and the department stopped tolerating the disorder that 

had engulfed so many public spaces. 

The benefits of the resulting crime decline have been disproportionately concentrated in the city’s poorest neighborhoods since 

that is where the cost of crime hit the hardest. Blacks and Hispanics have made up 79 percent of the drop in homicide victims 

since 1990. Over 10,000 Black and Hispanic males are alive today 

who would have been dead had homicide rates remained at their 

early 1990’s levels. 

With robberies and burglaries plummeting in once desolate 

neighborhoods in the late 1990’s, economic activity and property 

values there rose dramatically. Senior citizens could go shopping 

without fear of getting mugged. Children no longer needed to sleep 

in bathtubs to avoid stray bullets. 

Critics of the NYPD, however, cite statistics such as the following 

to charge that the department is racially biased. In 2009, 55 percent of the pedestrian stops made by the New York police had 

Black subjects, even though Blacks are only 23 percent of the city’s 

population. Whites, by contrast, were 10 percent of all stops, 

though they make up 35 percent of the city’s population. 

Here is what you will never hear from the activists, however. In 

2009, Blacks committed 66 percent of all violent crimes in New 

York City. How do we know this? That is what the victims and witnesses of those crimes, most of them minorities themselves, tell the 

police in making their crime reports. Blacks committed 80 percent 

of all shootings in 2009, according to victims, and 71 percent of all 

robberies. Whites, on the other hand, committed 5 percent of all 

violent crimes in 2009. They committed 1.4 percent of all shootings 

and less than 5 percent of all robberies. 

Given such disparities in crime rates, disparities which are replicated in every city in the country, the NYPD cannot target its resources where they are most needed without generating racially 

disproportionate stop-and-arrest data, even though the department’s tactics are colorblind. 

Community requests for assistance are the other main driver of 

police strategy, and the overwhelming demand coming out of highcrime precincts is for more cops and less tolerance of street disorder. If residents of an apartment building ask their precinct commander to eliminate the drug dealing on their streets, officers will 

17 

likely question people hanging out around the building and increase the enforcement of quality-of-life laws in order to drive away 

the dealers. Such requests for a crackdown on street sales come far 

more frequently from minority neighborhoods because that is 

where most open-air drug dealing occurs. The resulting stops will 

be based on behavior, not race, but each stop will count against the 

department in the activists’ racial profiling litigation tally. 

Under data-driven policing the police go where the crime and the 

victims are. Race has nothing to do with it. No government program over the last 50 years has had as positive effect in minority 

neighborhoods as proactive policing. Its successes should be more 

widely recognized. 

Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte and Committee Members. I look 

forward to answering any questions that you may have. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Ms. Mac Donald. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mac Donald follows:] 

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Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Conlon, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF EDWARD CONLON, 

FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE AND AUTHOR 

Mr. CONLON. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Members 

Scott and Conyers, for inviting me here to address this hearing. 

When I retired at the end of this summer, it brought to an end 

104 years of my family serving in law enforcement in New York, 

which began with my great-grandfather in 1907. I hope that by offering a few observations on crimes, cops, community and culture 

that it may be of service in the national discussion of these issues. 

The views I express here are my own. 

There is an exercise that I have seen a number of times in police 

training in which the instructor sets up by calling out a number 

of Black and White officers from the audience, all of whom are in 

civilian clothes. First, the instructor asks the Black officer to put 

his hands up against the wall and for two White officers to stand 

on either side of him. He then asked the audience, what do we 

have here? The answer usually comes back quick and casual: an arrest or a stop. The instructor then reverses the positions with a 

White officer against the wall flanked by two Black officers. Now 

what do we have? There is usually hesitant, nervous laughter as 

all are reluctant to say a mugging. 

There is a lesson, of course, in the power and danger of stereotypes, but I would always look around at that point to see the faces 

of the officers, Black, White or Hispanic, to see whether there 

seemed to be any difference in the reactions. They tended to be the 

same across the color line; a little chastened, but not much. It is 

a reminder to be careful not to jump to conclusions, rather than a 

repudiation of a lifetime of personal and professional assumptions. 

In my experience, in that classroom and outside of it, cops tend 

to think like other cops regardless of ethnicity. Decades of studies 

have borne this out, from the Kerner Commission onwards. Residents of minority communities have not reported significant differences how they are treated by Black police officers or White. In 

Kerner, Black support for increasing the diversity of police departments was seen as a matter of economic opportunity. There was no 

expectations that relations would necessarily be improved. 

Studies of cops of different races have shown some variety in 

their attitudes. Whites tend to have a more generalized view of 

people living in the ghetto, Blacks a more nuanced one, but the correlation between attitude and behavior is weak, even inverse. 

Black officers were more likely to use force against suspects of 

their own race and faster to arrest them. In the major cities that 

have had majority-minority police officer—forces for a generation, 

Detroit, Washington, Atlanta, Miami, police-community relations 

are not immune to conflict and upheaval. 

The history of race and racial discord in this country has largely 

been irrational, and I have always been surprised to see where race 

mattered and where it didn’t in policing. Where I worked in the 

South Bronx is overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic with exceedingly high rates of poverty. As a beat cop, the most inspiring and 

surprising revelation was seeing how many people in the projects 

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hood, cops are notional in a sense, a kind of insurance policy that 

most people won’t really need. In the poor neighborhood, a cop is 

routinely and vitally necessary. Older people, families, men and 

women making their way to and from work knew that they 

wouldn’t be bothered by troublemakers when I was around. Confrontations with younger guys, mostly in groups, beginning in their 

teen years and going on through their 20’s and beyond if they were 

unemployed, were commonplace, too. But whether the interaction 

was grateful or hostile race didn’t seem to factor much in ordinary 

workdays. 

In my narcotics unit, which was equally mixed between White, 

Black and Hispanic cops, we engaged in racial profiling with enthusiasm. The arrival of White faces on our corners and streets in our 

tenements and projects almost invariably meant that they were 

there to buy crack and heroin. They were easy pickings. We called 

them ‘‘strays,’’ as in stray dogs, because they often came over to us 

when we called them. And I will never forget listening to a wiretap 

of a drug dealer complaining about the racism of a White cop who 

stopped him in the lobby to ask him what he was doing there. I 

could see if I am some young thug selling drugs, he said. His indignation barely faded when he went on to say how lucky he was to 

have just dropped off his 400 grams of cocaine. 

As a detective the best you can hope for is that only half the people you meet wish they had never seen you. The most routinely 

dispiriting part of my job was not the homicides, not even the baby 

autopsies. What was awful was the nonfatal shootings, most of 

which involved me begging young Black and Hispanic men to tell 

me who shot them, sometimes for weeks and months at a time. I 

have lost count of the number, and I still can’t believe the reasons 

for the gunfire. The gang shootings and the drug shootings made 

sense compared to the shootings over dirty looks, accidental brushes on the sidewalk, rumors of insults, and brawls where no one was 

quite sure how they started. 

Quite a few of the victims were thugs, to put it bluntly, who had 

made other kids bleed before and would again as soon as they got 

out of the hospital, but many were not. They were kids who had 

never been arrested, church-work-and-school kids with churchwork-and-school mothers crying at their bedsides. They couldn’t tell 

on their idiot friends who may have helped instigate a conflict, 

which was frustrating, or they couldn’t be seen as cooperating with 

the police under any circumstances, which was heartbreaking. 

Sometimes there was fear of retaliation, reasonable or not, but 

quite often reflected a kind of moral position, a selective form of 

civil disobedience. It is a catastrophic attitude. 

Gun violence in America is, in effect, a segregated phenomenon. 

African Americans comprise approximately one-eighth of the population of this country——— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Conlon, you will need to sum up your testimony as well. 

Mr. CONLON. Beg your pardon? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. You need to summarize your testimony. 

Mr. CONLON. Okay. 

Last year 6,000 Black people were murdered in the United 

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ers who can be described exactly the same way. The casualty count 

is as if there were two 9/11s every year for Black people. I don’t 

know if it makes anyone feel better to point out that 20 years ago 

it was almost twice as bad. 

Very quickly, the practice of stop, question and frisk, it has been 

criticized in New York both because of the disparate impact of the 

people stopped, and it has been held that the low rate of arrests 

or weapon recovery—6 percent of arrests, about 1 percent with 

weapons recovery—shows its failure. I think it has changed the 

way people carry guns. A drug dealer on the corner used to have 

his gun in his waistband. If somebody stepped on his toe, or he saw 

a rival, that was a 2-second decision from the insult to the act. 

Now, because the police have been harassing these guys for a generation in New York, that gun is now on a rooftop, or it is in a bedroom, and the decision to pull the trigger is now 10 or 15 minutes, 

and tempers can cool off, and people can walk away. So that practice has, I think, saved lives in New York City. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Conlon. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conlon follows:] 

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Mr. GOODLATTE. Professor Harris, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID A. HARRIS, PROFESSOR OF LAW, ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH 

LAW 

Mr. HARRIS. Thank you very much, Chairman Goodlatte, Members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate very much the opportunity 

to talk to you here today. Thank you very much. My apologies. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, thanks for the opportunity to speak to you here today. The topic of smart policing, 

the subject of this hearing, is a very important one, because more 

and more the police have success by using information. It is all 

about the use of data. Whether it is data to locate the places in 

which there is criminal activity, or it is data to target the right 

people through intelligence work, or if it is data about best practices, it is all about information for the successful police departments in the United States today. To me, that is what smart policing means. 

Now, the most important source of information for any police department when we are talking about routine law enforcement 

tasks, routine enforcement of law on the streets, the most important source of information is the people who live in those neighborhoods, who make their homes on those streets, who work in those 

neighborhoods. Those are the people who are always there. Those 

are the people who can tell the police what is happening, because 

the police cannot always be there. They can’t. There are just not 

enough of them. And because of that, it is crucial, absolutely crucial, that the police strive to have the best possible relationship 

with those in our communities that they serve. 

Relationships have to be built on trust, they have to be built on 

a long history of working together, but it is that relationship that 

allows information to flow from the people who have it to the people who need it. And it is that that has awakened in law enforcement the realization that they cannot do the job themselves; they 

need the partnership, the help and the information they can get 

from the community. Without that they are flying blind. At the 

very least they are not able to do the job they could otherwise. 

A couple of very quick examples. The first terrorism cell broken 

in the United States after 2001 was in Lackawanna, New York. 

That cell was uncovered, the case was broken because people in 

that community, people who happen to be from Yemen, came forward and gave information to the FBI and to their local police officers, their community-policing officers. That was what set that case 

in motion. 

The second example, Cincinnati, a place where there was civil 

unrest 3 days long just a decade ago, a 5-year consent decree followed by years of working between the police and the community 

to build a relationship. Now the police are getting information, now 

crime is falling, now homicide is coming down in Cincinnati. So it 

is that relationship that is all important in affecting crime. 

Now, the problem as I see it with racial profiling, there are many 

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ship begins to break down. It begins to corrode. People begin to feel 

that the crime effort is not being done for them, but to them, and 

that has the effect of substituting for trust and for good relationships fear. And when fear is there, when resentment is there, what 

happens is communication breaks down, information stops flowing. 

And you can’t have smart policing unless you are getting information from the people who are there. They are a vital part, an absolutely critical part of the success of any police department. 

If you don’t have the cooperation, help and alliance of those you 

serve, you are really in a bad position as a police department. You 

are not doing everything you can. That is why so many police departments across the United States that have also experienced 

large drops in crime have made building these relationships and 

partnerships a centerpiece of their efforts to make their community 

safer, make the streets safe for everyone. 

With that in mind, if you want to have smart policing, think in 

terms of that relationship. Without it you are flying blind. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you, and 

I look forward to your questions. 

Mr. GOWDY [presiding]. Thank you, Professor Harris. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harris follows:] 

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Mr. GOWDY. Mr. Ship. 

TESTIMONY OF JILES H. SHIP, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES (NOBLE) 

Mr. SHIP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Conyers 

and Ranking Member Scott, and the Members of the Committee. 

I am Jiles Ship, national president of the National Organization of 


Harris-9.eps
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Black Law Enforcement Executives. Thank you for the opportunity 

to testify and submit testimony for the record regarding the problem of racial profiling and the use of suspect classifications in law 

enforcement policies. 

First and foremost I am a proud American, and I am a former 

United States marine with 6 years of honorable service, and I want 

to thank all of you for supporting and honoring the Montford Point 

Marines. 

As national president of NOBLE, I am here representing over 

3,500 chiefs of police, commissioners, superintendents, directors of 

public safety, and law enforcement executives, predominantly African American, but our membership also includes law enforcement 

officials from other communities. NOBLE has been a leading national voice on community policing, hate crimes, racial profiling, racial and religious tolerance, and law enforcement accreditation 

standards. As a founding association for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, better known as 

CALEA, along with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Executive Research Forum and the National Sheriffs’ Association, we work to improve the delivery of public safety 

services primarily by maintaining a body of standards developed by 

public safety practitioners covering a wide range of up-to-date public safety initiatives, establishing and administering an accreditation process, and recognizing professional excellence. 

I have spent over 25 years as a State and local law enforcement 

official, starting my career first serving as an officer in the Edison, 

New Jersey, Police Department, patroling a roadway more commonly known in the law enforcement profession as ‘‘Cocaine Alley.’’ 

I was also selected by the New Jersey attorney general to serve on 

a working group to develop a statewide eradicating racial profiling 

training. 

Racial profiling is one of the most critical issues facing law enforcement today. The continued denial and refusal to address this 

issue has led to the deterioration of public trust and confidence in 

the criminal justice system, and has strained police and community 

relations even more so in our post-9/11 society. 

The need to embrace smart policing as a philosophy is even more 

important. There are numerous cities throughout this Nation in 

crisis, powder kegs waiting to be ignited by a single incident of racial profiling. We cannot ignore the warning signals. We must respond immediately and develop strategies to eliminate this practice. 

To be clear, racial profiling means the practice of law enforcement officials or agencies relying to any degree on race, ethnicity 

in selecting which individuals to subject to routine or spontaneous 

investigatory activities, or in deciding upon the scope and substance of law enforcement activity following the initial investigatory procedure, except when there is trustworthy information relevant to the locality and the timeframe that links a person of a 

particular race or ethnicity to an identified criminal incident or 

scheme. 

Race, ethnicity, national origin or religion should never be used 

as a predictor of a person’s conduct. The general rule of prohibiting 

law enforcement officers from using racial profiling as a factor in 

43 

determining the likelihood that a person is engaged in criminal activity makes sense from a practical perspective because it is unambiguous and thus will help police officers to avoid many of the legal 

pitfalls and land mines that would arise were they to try to build 

race, ethnicity, national origin or religion into the equation of suspiciousness. Rather, law enforcement must look to conduct and behavior as indicators of criminal activity. Law enforcement officials 

must never use racial profiling as a factor in deciding that a person 

is involved in a criminal activity unless an officer is responding to 

a subject-specific or investigative-specific be-on-the-look-out—what 

we call BOLO—situation. A person’s race, ethnicity or national origin should play no part in police discretion. Our citizens deserve 

nothing less. 

There are many lasting effects that stem from the use of racial 

profiling. One of the most significant is the loss of public support 

in the form of community trust and engagement. The use of racial 

profiling has resulted in a culture in which everyday citizens mistrust law enforcement officers, the same people they should look to 

for protection. Rather than serving as a valuable source of intelligence information——— 

Mr. GOWDY. Mr. Ship, I hate to interrupt you. Your entire statement will be made part of the record. If you could maybe find a 

concluding point—and, trust me, everything will be made part of 

the record. But if you could find a point at which to maybe conclude because of the red light. 

Mr. SHIP. Yes, sir. All right. 

I would just like to say lastly, in addition to destroying a valuable pipeline of information, the resulting erosion of community 

trust undermines our law enforcement and prosecution efforts in 

other ways. 

Our law enforcement officers are hard-working men and women 

and are the backbone of our criminal justice system. They need to 

instill public trust within our communities to protect and serve. 

That is not a partisan issue. The National Organization of Black 

Law Enforcement Executives encourages you to enact legislation 

because it is important to our organization’s mission of ensuring 

justice, fairness and effectiveness in law enforcement. 

Thank you for your leadership on this critical issue. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Ship. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ship follows:] 

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ATTACHMENT 


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Mr. GOWDY. The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from 

California Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I want to thank all of you for your testimony. I 

appreciate it very, very much. 


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And I found Dr. Mac Donald’s testimony interesting. I know you 

are proud of New York and so forth. We have got similar results 

in California. From 1991 until 1999, when I left as attorney general, we had reduced the overall crime rate by 50 percent, the 

homicide rate by 30 percent. That has continued. I am not sure it 

is exactly as much. We did get the benefit of Chief Bratton coming 

to Los Angeles. And I happen to think the use of technology, the 

use of computer data has helped array the resources of law enforcement to those communities that are most subjected to violence and 

serious crime. I think that is a positive. 

Mr. Conlon, thank you for your service and the service of your 

family over the years. I found your testimony very, very affecting, 

not only because my brother was a police officer of LAPD for 5 

years, and at least in one assignment in his squad car he was 

paired with an African American officer whom he was training. 

And I just wonder, over the time you were on the force, did you 

see a change the effect in the communities you were serving as a 

result of the application of smart policing? And by smart policing, 

I mean as the application of information collected to give you a better understanding of where the violent and serious crime was occurring and the developments therefrom. 

Mr. CONLON. Yes. Really from a management standpoint, a captain or a precinct commander would be called to the carpet every 

month downtown in CompStat, and they would point out you have 

robberies every other Tuesday at this corner which is by a school, 

what are you doing about it? And they could assign officers there. 

So knowing the patterns allows you to predict the future to a certain degree. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Is that reflected in the community? In other 

words, I appreciate the fact that racial profiling can have a debilitating effect on those to whom it is directed. And if there is a belief 

of that in the community, there is a less likelihood, Professor Harris, that members of that community are going to cooperate with 

the police. But this is my general observation. I may be wrong, but 

my general observation is that tension and the corrosiveness of the 

relationship between police and the minority communities is not as 

bad today as it was 20 years ago, in part because the amount of 

violent crime visited upon members of the minority community is 

less than it was before. Is that a fair statement? I am not suggesting there isn’t racial profiling going on amongst some individuals, but, Mr. Shelton, would that be a fair statement? 

Mr. SHELTON. I have not sure it isfully informed. If we look at 

the number of calls and reports that we receive at the NAACP 

throughout 2,200 membership units, I would have to say that we 

are getting as many calls, if not more. And if we are looking at 

areas as we added some new challenges by local law enforcement, 

including some of the anti-immigration policies that are now in 

place in which racial profiling becomes a necessary tool for enforcement, what we are seeing is the challenges are equally as much, 

if not more, expanded now. We are getting more calls, believe it or 

not, also from not only our Latino friends, but our Arab and Asian 

friends, our Muslim friends——— 

Mr. LUNGREN. That is interesting. The thing that resonates in 

my mind is a conversation I had with a young African American 

50 

teenager about 14 or 15 years old when, in my position then, we 

went down and held a forum at a high school in Los Angeles where 

a young man had been killed. And it was a violence-prevention conference. And my belief is you are not just worried about crime, you 

are worried about violence, so we had a violence and crime prevention unit. 

I went down there. We had the presentation. This young girl 

came up to me, and she said, why is it you adults never show up 

until after one of our young people have been killed? And that resonated with me. And that is why I thought that if, in fact, we had 

been successful in bringing the crime rate down, particularly the 

violent crime rate down, across the board, but because of the disproportionate number of criminals in the minority communities, 

the bringing of the crime rate down disproportionately benefits in 

that sense. And I just wonder if that is reflected at all in a community. If I don’t have to say to the attorney general or the police 

chief as often, why don’t you guys come down here until after someone is killed, because you are actually here, that is a positive for 

me. 

And I am not trying to say there isn’t some racial profiling. On 

the POST Commission in California, you know, we have a number 

of different training programs for police officers. Racial profiling is 

not to be allowed. And I think we are human beings, we have to 

work on that. 

But in terms of using some of the data, I am a little worried 

about that, because I have always thought some of the best data 

is, if you want to look about racial disproportionality, the testimony 

of witnesses or, more importantly to me, the testimony of victims. 

And we have a crisis in this country of the disproportionality of violent victims being minorities, and that is a problem that we have 

not been successful totally in, even though I think we have made 

some progress. But those statistics cry out to me to say why can’t 

we do a better job of making these minority communities safer as 

we say with the whole community? It is a frustration, I guess. 

Ms. MAC DONALD. Congressman Lungren, may I respond, please? 

Thank you. 

There was a Quinnipiac poll done in New York City in 2010 that 

found that Black support for Commissioner Ray Kelly, who is the 

current commissioner of the NYPD, was about 70 percent approval 

of the job he was doing. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Is that higher than Congress? 

Ms. MAC DONALD. I am afraid he may be taking your job soon. 

This is a man with political ambitions. The White support was 

about 80 percent, so it was not a huge difference. 

Philadelphia has been sued by the ACLU for stop-and-frisks. A 

recent poll there found that the vast majority of Black residents of 

Philadelphia found that the police used force appropriately. 

So there is support, because I have been to so many community 

meetings in Harlem and in Brooklyn, and, again, what you hear is, 

we want more cops. You don’t hear brutality allegations; you hear, 

why aren’t you getting the drug dealers off the street and keeping 

them off the street? So if there was a huge backlash against the 

police, you would not be finding a demand for more cops. 

51 

As far as the effect on minority communities, I just cannot stress 

enough that CompStat is colorblind. If you go to a CompStat meeting in downtown New York where those precinct commanders are 

being grilled about crime patterns on their streets, because the 

New York Police Department wants to save everybody’s lives equally, the crime dots on the map say nothing about race, they just 

show you where the victims are. Nobody is talking about race at 

CompStat, they are saying, where are the patterns of crime happening, and they are happening overwhelmingly in minority neighborhoods. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, could the gentleman from California be yielded a couple of minutes, please? 

Mr. GOWDY. I was just going to tell Ms. Mac Donald, because of 

many reasons, including the fact that he is a former attorney general in California, the clock ran a little bit. It is not your fault, it 

is not his fault, but you may get another question about CompStat 

at which point you can answer that. 

But I would now thank the gentleman from California and would 

now turn to the gentleman from Virginia. 

Mr. SCOTT. You have a request of unanimous consent. 

Mr. CONYERS. I asked for a couple more minutes for Dan Lungren so he could yield to me. 

Mr. GOWDY. So he can yield to you? Without objection. 

Mr. CONYERS. He doesn’t have to. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I would always yield to you, yes, sir. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, thank you. 

Look, the only point I want to make, and I thank you for allowing me to ask this, is in referring to the crime reduction that occurred when you were there and was following this on a day-byday basis, there were social programs that collaborated with police 

programs, the violence prevention program being one. But in your 

case I wanted to ask you about that, because in New York there 

are studies that show that the social programs combined with the 

police work, it is not CompStat alone, it was—and I want to find 

out what happens in L.A. I will be asking her about the New York 

experience. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, reclaiming my time, we instituted a number 

of things in California at the time, COPS program, community oriented policing, problem solving, which goes to the point that Professor Harris made. But I would also say we implemented three 

strikes and you are out, we implemented a victim’s bill of rights, 

we instituted truth in sentencing. And I know this is controversial, 

but we did increase substantially our prison population trying to 

get the career criminals off the street, in addition to the things the 

gentlemen have said. 

So I am not suggesting there is any one single thing, but I will 

say there was a marked change in attitude toward law enforcement 

during those years, and I happen to be one that thinks that it was 

successful. But young people not only talk to me about not wanting 

to be killed in their high schools, but they wanted to have an education, they wanted to have some other things. I think the gentleman is correct on that. 

Mr. SHELTON. Mr. Chairman, if I might also respond to Mr. Lungren’s question. What we have seen is if—we don’t want to get 

52 

across the point that we want less police officers. We do want more 

police officers. We want them on our streets, we want them visible, 

but we also want them well trained. 

We believe the effectiveness of our police officers is also deeply 

rooted in the relationship they have with the communities they 

serve. As long as we allow racial profiling to continue, or the perception of racial profiling, as we are seeing now, without the accountability of measures in which we actually take into account 

what is going on in our neighborhoods, we don’t have that trust or 

relationship. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I would agree with you. The only concern I have 

is I might say you might—and I apologize. I don’t want to—well, 

is the misuse or the misunderstanding of statistics. And I think we 

have to be very careful about that. And, to me, the most meaningful statistic is the disproportionate impact of violence on the minority community, which is not as bad as it was 20 years ago, but still 

is one of the identifying characteristics of a young person trying to 

grow up in those communities, and we ought to do a better job on 

that. 

Mr. SHELTON. Well, absolutely. And certainly prevention requires 

that trust factor of a police officer that has been well trained. As 

a matter of fact, from California there is a police chief named 

Lansdowne, who I believe is retired now, but was the chief of San 

Jose. Lansdowne actually implemented anti-racial-profiling policies 

by actually taking the count, counting the number of traffic stops, 

looking at races, seeing if there was a problem. He said as a chief 

administrator he had a responsibility to collect data. If you are 

going to have data-driven policing, you have to collect the data. 

What we would like to see happen to try to stop racial profiling 

is a collection of data that can be analyzed. One of the things he 

did to prevent the misunderstanding or misanalysis of that data 

was actually to pull together citizens from the community of all 

races, genders and ethnicities so they could process the data, understand it and make recommendations to the chief. That is the accounting we would like to see happen. That is the kind of legislation, quite frankly, we would like to see Congress implement. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from California. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And one of the things we know that can significantly reduce 

crime, particularly juvenile crime, are prevention initiatives. The 

Youth Promise Act, which I have talked to the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania about a little bit earlier, has been studied and looked 

at by experts and has been viewed as an excellent strategy to significantly reduce crime by getting young people on the right track 

and keeping them on the right track so they don’t get in trouble 

to begin with. 

I want to start with Mr. Ship. If you don’t have—if you have 

profiling, it seems to me that you are wasting a lot of time on innocent people and not enough time on guilty people. If you do not 

have profiling, how will police be more—policing be more effective? 

Mr. SHIP. Mr. Scott, you are exactly right. Progressive police executives have come to the understanding that in order to generate 

community support, which I don’t know if I heard that loudly here, 

53 

but in large part why we are noticing the reduction in the crime 

numbers now is because of the fact that community policing was 

heavily driven into a number of different communities. 

The computer statistics are a tool that I use as a director of a 

police department to more so hold my subordinates accountable. It 

is data driven, it is information that can be used to hold people accountable, but that is all it is. That is all it is. And I am not diminishing the importance of it. 

We have to—but—and I just want to touch on another thing, too, 

with Commissioner Ray Kelly. I was with him 2 weeks ago. The 

reason why that people are in so great support of him is because 

of the fact that when he sees cops acting out in ways that they 

should not, he takes swift action to address that and to rid them 

out of his department, which builds community trust. If the community trust is built, you are going to have more people coming 

forth to participate in trials, you are going to have them acting as 

witnesses, and when they serve on juries, if they trust and have 

faith in their local law enforcement, they will be more willing to 

render a just verdict and not put the police under question. 

Mr. SCOTT. And how does a perception in the community—how 

is the perception affected if the community believes that the police 

are picking on people because of their race? 

Mr. SHIP. It will just have the countereffect. Racially-influenced 

policing would result in some jurors being mistrustful of law enforcement officers, therefore lesswilling to accept the credibility of 

police witnesses. And this can happen when a police officer does 

something during an encounter to make a citizen or a friend or a 

relative mistrustful of that police officer. So it will have the 

countereffect. 

Mr. SCOTT. And what kind of training would tend to minimize racial profiling? 

Mr. SHIP. The best training—and some agencies are getting their 

people trained in that area now; as a matter of fact, right here at 

metro and on a Federal level, TSA—is we have to look at it from 

a behavioral science standpoint. We have to police conduct and behavior, not a person’s—based on their ethnicity or their race. 

Mr. SCOTT. And is that training effective? 

Mr. SHIP. That training has been very effective. As a matter of 

fact, in the long run we will find that it is going to be more effective, because those are the indicators that we need to know in 

order to really thwart criminal activity. 

Mr. SCOTT. Professor Harris, on the stop-and-frisk right now, 

what is the legal standard right now? 

Mr. HARRIS. I couldn’t hear all of your question. 

Mr. SCOTT. On the stop-and-frisk cases, what legal standard— 

what do the cases say that—when you can do it and when you 

can’t? 

Mr. HARRIS. Stop-and-frisk is well understood. It has been used 

in the law for a long time. The standard in place has been there 

since 1968. Police must have reasonable, fact-based suspicion that 

the person they are observing is involved in some kind of criminal 

activity. It is less evidence—less evidence is required than probable 

cause, but it does require some evidence that would give you a factual basis for reasonable suspicion. 

54 

If there is also reasonable suspicion that the person might be 

armed, either because there is some outward indication of presence 

of a gun or because the crime that they suspect requires a gun, 

armed robbery, they may then also do a frisk. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania Mr. Marino. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you, Chairman. 

Lady and gentlemen, thank you for being here. I am going to ask 

you questions based on my experience. I was a prosecutor for 18 

years, a district attorney, and a United States attorney. And let me 

preface by saying that I am proud of our record in my county and 

in the Middle District of Pennsylvania to combat racial profiling, 

because we follow the crime. 

So based on that, Mr. Shelton, you quoted some statistics of the 

number of calls that you received from individuals about racial 

profiling. Is there a way that you were able to follow up to determine the legitimacy of those calls, and did you find very many that 

were not legitimate? 

Mr. SHELTON. What we usually do as a volunteer organization is 

actually transmit those complaints with concerns to their race to 

local law enforcement. Many people are afraid to actually go to the 

local law enforcement agency. Unfortunately, in too many cases it 

is the same entity that actually receives the complaints for the activities, so they are fearful to go into some of these offices in many 

cases. We forward it there, and if we find those that are particularly problematic, we also forward those to the U.S. Justice Department’s Pattern and Practice Division here in Washington. 

Mr. MARINO. One of my biggest complaints was—and I am going 

to bring the media into this somewhat—the media doesn’t hesitate 

to show a bad situation with an officer and—of a person that is potentially going to be arrested. I wish we would see more positive 

aspects of a police officer. In exchange for programs that we put 

into our county and in our district, we even had police stations in 

a housing project where we rented one of the apartments, and the 

police officers were there on a 24/7 basis, where the neighbors came 

in and out. And we also did receive a great deal of requests for 

more police officers to be working with individuals. We had neighborhood watches. As the district attorney, U.S. attorney, I actually 

went in to all my neighborhoods on a monthly basis on a rotation 

and sat and talked with people. Do you find that being effective? 

Anyone can answer. 

Mr. SHIP. Absolutely. And that is what I was alluding to earlier 

when I was talking about the community policing initiatives that 

really had an impact on reducing the rate of crime, especially, especially in urban centers, but not limited to. Even in the suburban 

communities the numbers have been greatly reduced because of 

that initiative. 

Mr. MARINO. It looks like Mr. Harris wanted to——— 

Mr. HARRIS. I was going to say, sir, that is a very effective way 

of doing it, and it is all because you are having communication on 

a regular basis. When you have some kind of a conduit for that, 

when you have a procedure for it, when people see that you are not 

there just to be there once, but you are coming back and you are 

55 

coming back, that is what builds the relationship, and the relationship brings in the information, and everybody can succeed. 

Mr. MARINO. Let me ask the former police officers. And please 

respond to this. Do you see or have you seen particular crimes associated with particular ethnic backgrounds based on a scale of economics; for example, the use of cocaine versus the use of crack? 

Mr. SHIP. Well, let me just make sure I am clear on that, sir. 

More than not it is generally based on the socioeconomic environment more so than the ethnicity or the race of the individual. And 

there was a study done in Georgia with the Secretary of Labor. 

Mr. MARINO. That is why I bring in the economics. 

Mr. SHIP. Yes. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MARINO. Okay. So would you agree with me that, at least in 

my experience, when it came to cocaine, we were prosecuting and 

putting people in prison who were from Caucasian backgrounds, 

from upper middle-class and wealthy individuals who could afford 

to purchase the cocaine, but also African Americans who didn’t 

have the money to purchase the cocaine, but could purchase and 

manufacture the crack at a cheaper price. Is that, in fact, true? 

Have you experienced that as police officers? And, sir, you may 

jump in, too. 

Mr. SHELTON. I would just add in many of those cases there is 

an issue of the process in which police target communities they 

think are having the biggest problems. As we look at issues along 

those lines, we begin with the data, understanding what the Department of Health and Human Services says about crack cocaine, 

the use of cocaine, and other drug use, and have a situation where 

60 percent, according to the Department of Health and Human 

Services, of illegal crack cocaine users are White Americans, but 

over 80 percent of all the prosecutions of crack cocaine convictions 

are African Americans. We know there is a little data problem 

along those lines. 

If the question is how can we be most effective at being able to 

prevent these crimes from happening in the first place, which I 

think is what all of us want, it does require that trust of those law 

enforcement officials again. It requires those law enforcement officials to have the kind of relationship with the communities they 

serve in which the communities feel that they can actually give 

them the information quietly and trustfully that will help prevent 

the crime from happening. 

Being accountable to those communities is one of the most important things we can have in those neighborhoods for those community members to feel that indeed they had the respect of those law 

enforcement officials, and that they will be treated fairly throughout the process. 

Mr. MARINO. Go ahead, sir, please. 

Mr. CONLON. I would like to—I think that the community relations and community policing are essential and valuable on their 

own terms. I would also like to point out that the major drops in 

crime in New York City during the 1990’s were at a period when 

racial relations, certainly compared to now, were fairly adversarial, 

certainly between the mayor and various minority leadership in the 

city. The fact that relations were often quite poor didn’t seem to be 

an impediment to very, very rapid drops in crime. 

56 

Mr. MARINO. Chair, is my time running out? May I have 1 more 

minute? 

Mr. GOWDY. Without objection. 

Mr. MARINO. Let us switch to juveniles, which my good friend 

Mr. Scott, I think, is setting me up for for something down the 

road. 

I am very passionate about getting involved in working diligently 

with our kids. As a district attorney I handled the juvenile caseload 

pretty much myself, because our purpose there is to get them on 

the right road, and not so much punishment, although punishment 

has to be a part of it. 

What are we doing? We have to start with our kids; education, 

aware of what is right and wrong, and a good environment. Let us 

just for a moment not think about the money side of it, let us just 

think about what we have to improve on or change concerning our 

relationship—law enforcement’s relationship with our children. 

Anybody chime in. 

Mr. HARRIS. The relationship between kids and the police officers 

who serve in those communities is crucial. And when it is good, 

when the kids see the same officer, and the same officer is assigned 

over a long period of time, when the officer is in the schools, when 

the officer is at the neighborhood festival, when the officer comes 

to their homes, even lives in their neighborhoods, though I don’t 

think that is strictly necessary, that kind of a person can be a presence, and then that officer will know what kind of a kid he is dealing with. And so if you got 10 kids in hooded sweatshirts, they will 

know which one is the bad one and which of the other 9 are just 

kids. 

Mr. MARINO. Quickly, anyone else want to respond to that? 

Ms. MAC DONALD. I would definitely support Professor Harris in 

that. I would just say that the best thing that an officer can do for 

children is to keep them alive. And the fact is that the crime drop 

in New York has been highest in minority neighborhoods. There 

are children now who are alive who would have been killed by 

stray gunfire had crime not dropped. And if we are going to 

delegitimate data-driven policing because it generates racially disproportionate data, we are going to hurt minorities most of all. 

The question that this Committee has not really addressed is 

does racial profiling exist on the scale in which it is alleged. The 

evidence that is provided for it again and again is statistical, and 

it looks at police activity which is disproportionately concentrated 

in minority neighborhoods. But you cannot have police activity that 

goes after crime that does not generate disproportionate data. Police stops can either mirror census figures, or they can go after 

crime. They cannot do both. 

The shooting rate in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where a woman was 

just killed at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon by stray gunfire by youth 

gangs, the shooting rate in Brownsville is 81 times higher per capita than in neighboring Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Given that reality, 

the police stops are going to be higher in Brownsville than they are 

in Bay Ridge. And if you are going to delegitimate policing by saying that they are racially profiling because the stop rate is higher 

in Brownsville than it is in Bay Ridge, while ignoring the underVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:32 Mar 01, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\CRIME\110411\71056.000 HJUD1 PsN: 71056
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lying crime rates, you are going to be leading to more minority 

deaths and crime. 

Mr. CONYERS. Would the gentleman yield for just a moment on 

that point, because I would like to find out who she suspects on the 

Committee may be delegitimating those numbers. Unfortunately, I 

regretfully have to agree with them. But I haven’t heard anybody 

suggest what you are saying, that we don’t understand that. I 

think everybody here does. 

Ms. MAC DONALD. Well, then, I am glad to hear that, Congressman Conyers, and I am sure that you do with your understanding 

of reality. But the fact of the matter is is that the evidence that 

the ACLU routinely puts forward for racial profiling is based on a 

very primitive analysis, which is that, as in New York City, for instance, the stop rate for Blacks is higher than it is for the population. It is 55 percent of all stops are of Blacks, whereas Blacks 

are only 23 percent of the population. Without look at crime 

rates——— 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, I am just hoping that Chairman Gowdy will 

entertain in the future, either this year or early next, a criminal 

justice hearing in which we have ACLU and you as panelists before 

us. 

Mr. GOWDY. Temporary Chairman Gowdy will be happy to pass 

that on to permanent Chairman Sensenbrenner. And this seems 

like a wonderful time to recognize the gentleman from Michigan for 

his time of questioning. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, I am going to yield to Sheila Jackson Lee, 

sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Very well. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much. And let me thank the 

temporary Chair for the indulgence that he has given all the Members, and I ask his indulgence as well as I proceed. And I thank 

the Ranking Member for yielding because of an early departure. 

Let me just say I am so glad that the Ranking Member clarified 

that numbers speak for themselves. If the police department reports numbers of 60 percent crime and numbers dealing with the 

numbers of the percentage or the racial description of the individual arrested, then those are the numbers. And what I would say 

to you, Ms. Mac Donald, it is easy to be dispassionate on numbers. 

You are an analyst, and I respect your talent for that, but you 

speak in a tone that is tone deaf on the societal issues that, even 

though we are a Judiciary Committee, many of us have to take into 

consideration. 

So let me speak to the issue that I think is glaring in front of 

all of us. Let me, first of all, lay on the record my deep respect for 

Commissioner Ray Kelly, who we both served together, myself and 

the Congress, many Members here, and he in his capacity when he 

served in the Federal Government. Give him my greetings. And I 

certainly appreciate his work. 

But the burden of race is one that, except for a few panelists, has 

been completely ignored. If history speaks to the treatment of the 

Irish that may have been classified as petty criminals, but we don’t 

stop Irish Americans today randomly. History would speak to what 

many Italians will push back, rightly so, of the Mafia, but we don’t 

go into Italian neighborhoods and ask, are you part of the Mafia? 

58 

I believe that we have a way of addressing the questions that 

Ms. Mac Donald has raised and our former New York NYPD on the 

issue of behavior. None of us are denying that you can get a random neighborhood of African Americans, and I am so glad you are 

saying that these individuals are propolice. Hallelujah. Let us put 

that on the front pages of the New York Times. The NAACP and 

ACLU have been trying to say that for a very long time. Those of 

us who are African Americans, we are glad that our young men 

and young women are part of the police department law enforcement. We are delighted of our leadership at NOBLE. My dear 

friends are police officers. 

But the question is that if you took an individual family and 

said, would you like to have your son shot in your driveway while 

the mother is screaming, this is my son and he is in our car, while 

a law enforcement officer says, you have stolen the car, most would 

say not. They will come to the NAACP, they will come to the 

ACLU. Or if you ask the bride whether she wanted her bridegroom 

on the night before their marriage to be shot down in a gunfire 

that seemed to have been provoked, probably still a debate in New 

York, they will probably argue not. So the organizations like the 

NAACP, like those of us on the Judiciary Committee, ACLU, we 

handle the unique cases. 

I would venture to say, Mr. Shelton, do you have hardened criminals coming into your office saying, we have been discriminated 

against, or are the kinds of people that are coming into your office 

those who may be victimized simply on the basis of race as they 

interpret it? Is that what you are seeing? 

Mr. SHELTON. What we see is those who feel they have been victimized. These are usually good, law-abiding citizens that just cannot understand how it is that themselves and, in most cases, sons, 

but daughters as well—their sons have been victimized along these 

lines. They are trying to figure out how they can explain to their 

children how important these law enforcement officers are in the 

overall when they feel that they are victimized simply because of 

their physical characteristics, the color of their skin. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And if I might pursue this line of questioning, 

a few years ago Ranking Member Conyers and a number of us pursued the issue of police brutality around America. I, frankly, believe we had an impact. We had an impact by raising the issue, 

and police departments themselves began to self-police and find 

better ways. 

So let me go to Professor Harris. I am on Homeland Security. We 

have had a series of incidences and hearings dealing with the Muslim community and the way you figure into that community. 

Frankly, I believe we have got to move the thermometer up on the 

behavioral assessment and education of our officers, because if one 

of our children wants to go out for a loaf of bread or drive a car 

to get a loaf of bread dressed in the attire of the basic hip-hop community, and they are just home from Yale, but they happen to be 

African American, that child—or maybe walking down a Brownsville street—had a scholarship at Yale or Harvard, that child, that 

African American boy, can be stopped and frisked. 

The question we ask is whether or not that is the best use of police resources. Can you explain or comment on that behavioral asVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:32 Mar 01, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\CRIME\110411\71056.000 HJUD1 PsN: 71056
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pect that we can begin to work with you on even legislatively to 

the extent of resources? I call it best practices. Would you respond 

to that, how that would differ on maybe that particular student 

that is going down the block? 

Mr. HARRIS. Yes, ma’am. The use of police power and resources 

must be channeled in the most effective possible way. When race 

or ethnic appearance is one of the factors that police use to target 

people, the effectiveness of the law enforcement effort goes down. 

And when you say behavior, you are exactly right. Behavior is 

the thing that we all want to be focusing on because behavior predicts behavior. Appearance does not predict behavior. And that is 

true whether we are talking about homeland security work, whether we are in an African American community, or whether we are 

talking about Muslims. It is all about focusing on behavior, and the 

agencies that have led the way on that have figured out that behavior is what will give the best police results over time; that putting race or ethnic appearance, except for a description of a known 

suspect, which is not profiling——— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Obviously. Not profiling. 

Mr. HARRIS. That is not profiling. Except for a description of a 

known suspect, appearance confounds the ability of the human 

mind to make decisions about what people are doing. It is a conflicting and confusing factor. So if we can look mostly to behavior, 

that is where we are going to get our best police work, our highest 

level of results, and it is going to in the bargain bring police and 

communities onto the same page instead of having them alienated 

from each other. 

I am glad, I could not be more glad, that crime has fallen in so 

many American communities, and especially in African American, 

Latino and other communities. And it just makes me wonder why, 

then, is there still a gap in satisfaction with the police at the level 

that it has persisted for so many years. And I have to believe that 

part of the answer to that is this historical relationship in which 

there has been a feeling that people are not served, but are 

disserved, and it may continue in some places in some departments. It may continue in the form of using race or ethnic appearance as a way to target people. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I would like just to have the 

president of NOBLE just respond very quickly and ask for an additional minute just for him to respond to that line of reasoning. 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentlelady via the gentleman from Michigan is 

yielded an additional minute. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank you. 

And to the president of NOBLE, let me thank you for your leadership. But respond to—that is a very good question. And what we 

say on this side of the table—let me just say what I say, having 

been involved in a lot of police incident cases, that doesn’t for me 

label all of the police. Wouldn’t that be better, wouldn’t that begin 

to redefine the relationship if we use behavior, we did training, and 

we begin to dumb down or lower down these dispassionate statistics that talk about it is great to stop and frisk people, such as the 

complaints in New York—if we had a behavioral and then began 

to develop a better eye of police to get the guys that would have 

shot that lady on a Brownsville street in gang fire, which no one 

60 

would oppose, versus the kid getting a loaf of bread trying to get 

an education? 

Mr. SHIP. That is exactly right, madam. And the—all of the 

chiefs of police that I have spoken to encourage their people to 

train, get additional training in behavioral science as a way to best 

combat and predict that criminal activity is going to occur before 

it occurs. We do need help. It is—it is a costly undertaking. And 

unfortunately, enough State and local law enforcement officers are 

not afforded that opportunity. So that would definitely help. 

But if I may, if I could just share a New Jersey experience with 

the Committee also. In the State of New Jersey in 2009, the attorney general—we drafted at the attorney general’s office, and I was 

part of that working group—we drafted a policy to eradicate racial 

profiling, and the legislature outlawed it in the State of New Jersey. That training that those officers got, it was mandatory that 

every law enforcement officer in the State of New Jersey get this 

training. Since that has occurred, the number of incidents and calls 

that we have gotten from motorists and other individuals in the 

State of New Jersey has reduced drastically. So that training that 

the officers were giving and also the monitoring now that the commanders and supervisors are doing with respect to racial profiling 

has had a dramatic impact. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady from Texas. 

I will recognize myself. 

Mr. Ship and Mr. Conlon, I want to first thank you for your service within law enforcement and armed services. 

Mr. Ship, I was a prosecutor for 16 years, and the thing I liked 

most about the job is very little politics among law enforcement officers, prosecutors. It is as depoliticized as any environment can be. 

The thing I liked least about it was sitting with the parents of African American youths who had been shot and explaining to them 

that while there were witnesses, none of them would cooperate 

with the police, and none of them would cooperate with prosecutors. So it is almost as if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that you lose 

confidence in the criminal justice system because you have a child 

that has been murdered, and you can’t do anything about it because we don’t have witnesses that are willing to help. So how do 

we fix that? 

Mr. SHIP. And, Mr. Chairman, that is one of the lasting effects 

also that stem from the use of racial profiling and other bad police 

practices within a community. 

Mr. GOWDY. But these aren’t drug cases, and they are not property crime cases. These are murder cases. 

Mr. SHIP. Yes, sir. I agree with you wholeheartedly, and I understand your passion in that area, but if you are in a community that 

do not trust the police, it is going to be very difficult and extremely 

difficult to get those individuals to cooperate with the criminal justice system. 

Mr. GOWDY. Ms. Mac Donald, do you think it is a wise expenditure of police resources to put them in the neighborhoods with the 

most 911 calls? 

Ms. MAC DONALD. With the most what? 

61 

Mr. GOWDY. The most 911 calls or the most reports of crime. Is 

that a wise investment to put most of your police resources where 

the most number of 911 calls are or the most number of reports 

of crime? 

Ms. MAC DONALD. I think that police should go where the crime 

is, yes, I do, because that is where people need the most protection. 

Mr. GOWDY. And if they are there, then why would you not have 

a disproportionate amount of police-citizen interactions if they are 

already there? 

It strikes me that the police really can’t win, because if they 

don’t go into the neighborhoods where the crime is taking place, 

which oftentimes in South Carolina are indigent neighborhoods or 

sometimes minority neighborhoods—if they are not there, they are 

blamed for ignoring crime in minority neighborhoods. If they do go, 

and they spend a disproportionate amount of time there, there are 

going to be more interactions between police and the citizens or the 

residents of that community. So how do police win? 

Ms. MAC DONALD. You are absolutely right, Congressman 

Gowdy. It used to be that the rap against the police was that they 

ignored crime in minority neighborhoods, and that may well have 

been the case. 

Again, CompStat is utterly colorblind. It has nothing to do with 

race. Officers are already using behavior, not race, to determine 

whom to stop. If they were using race, they would literally be stopping every single person in Brownsville. That is not the case. What 

they are looking for is are you hanging out on a known drug corner 

at 2 a.m. And possibly hitching up your waistband in a way that 

would suggest that you have a gun. They are targeting their resources where crime is high so when the cops are there, they are 

looking for behavioral cues to determine who they stop. 

Given what the disparities are in crime rates, they cannot help 

but generate disproportionate stop data because that is where the 

cops are, and that is also where the criminals are. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I want to say this. I want to just take a moment and brag on my sheriff, Chuck Wright, who employed 

CompStat a couple years before I left as the D.A. And still uses it. 

And, Mr. Ship, I will tell you, my chief of police, and I intentionally 

didn’t say it when I asked the question, is an African American 

chief of police, who has been there since before I went to the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office in 1994. I think he is the best police chief in the 

country. And he had the exact same frustration I did; he just has 

more gravitas and standing to express it than I do. The same frustration: As an African American in law enforcement, I get blamed 

for not doing it, and then when we need to make the prosecution, 

we need to make the arrest, I can’t get folks to help. 

Professor, I am going to do what everyone who graduated from 

law school up here has always wanted to do, which is ask a law 

professor a question since we had them asked of us for 3 years. I 

want you to assume for the sake of argument that Whites are disproportionately likely to commit crimes of exhibitionism, indecent 

exposure, peeping Tom. And at least in my jurisdictions that is 

true, they are more likely to do it. I want you to assume that a victim, a woman, sees a masked man at her window. Is it appropriate 

62 

for law enforcement to pull the files on White sex offenders in the 

neighborhood to begin their investigation? 

Mr. HARRIS. Yes, it is, Congressman. It is appropriate because 

you have related a behavior to prior behavior. That is what makes 

that an absolutely appropriate move. 

If you wanted to go further and be a little more thorough, 

though, I would pull all the sex offender files, not just the ones of 

White people, because the person is wearing a mask. So it is a good 

first step, but I would take it further. 

Mr. GOWDY. Agreed. But when I hear the term ‘‘racial profiling,’’ 

it is not—and I listen very carefully to all of the explanations, and 

I know that there are exceptions made when there is a credible indication of the ethnicity or race of the perpetrator. In my hypothetical the person was masked. But because the statistics in that 

area indicate that Whites are more likely to commit that crime, 

which is true in the area I came, you see nothing wrong with police 

beginning their investigation with White sex offenders in the 

neighborhood? 

Mr. HARRIS. As long as that is only the beginning. To stop there 

would be a big, big mistake. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure he understood your 

question. Your question is whether you would pull just White sex 

offenders, not all sex offenders. Would it make more sense to pull 

all the sex offenders? 

Mr. HARRIS. It makes more sense to pull all the sex offenders. 

Mr. GOWDY. I was actually asking do you consider it to be racial 

profiling if the police just pull the White sex offender files? 

Mr. HARRIS. As long as what we are talking about is a relationship of behavior and behavior, and you have some reason to suspect those files, the people in those files, I don’t see any reason that 

you can’t begin an investigation that way. But if you stay with it, 

you are going to cut off your possible pool of suspects in a way that 

may take you off the track. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. I am, in keeping with the custom, out of 

time. 

I would now recognize the gentleman from Michigan Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Gowdy. 

I wanted to hopefully introduce to Attorney Mac Donald the head 

of the Washington bureau of the American Civil Liberties Union. 

I don’t know if you two had the pleasure of meeting. I was hoping 

I could be the first to have introduced you, because notwithstanding Chairman Gowdy’s modesty, we are going to try to get 

you all together as soon as we can in the Committee to continue 

this discussion. 

Ms. MAC DONALD. I look forward to that. 

Mr. CONYERS. She is in the audience, of course, but has not been 

able to participate in this very interesting discussion. And I am 

very pleased that you five were selected. And, of course, Hilary 

Shelton is a regular, as is our Toledo professor, who we enjoy coming back. But, to me, Detective Ed Conlon has been incredibly reserved in his participation in this activity as we bring it to a close 

with Judy Chu. 

63 

Let me ask you, and you have—of course, many of you are authors, but you have not only practiced police work, but you have 

written about your observances from that experience. And I would 

like to begin our discussion with you taking the time you need to 

reflect on the rich variety of opinions that have arisen over this discussion this morning, Detective Conlon. 

Mr. CONLON. Thank you, Congressman. 

I think the police are not in the business of making people 

happy. I think somebody who lives a long lifetime and never speaks 

to a cop doesn’t wish they had. They are—sometimes they are the 

bringers of bad news, and sometimes they are the proof of it. 

Also, I think there is a tendency to—at least there was in New 

York—to view either the mayor or the police commissioner as sort 

of the incarnation of the police. There certainly was during the 

Giuliani era, as if every cop was a mini Giuliani. Now we certainly 

benefit by having Commissioner Kelly at the top, who has long and 

distinguished service, and I can speak honestly about him because 

I don’t work for him anymore. 

It is an acutely painful subject, that of race in America. The Congresswoman made mention of the Sean Bell case in New York 

where this young man was killed by police on the night before his 

wedding. Now, three New York City police officers were put on 

trial in relation to that death. Two of them were African American, 

and one of them was Arab American. 

Now, the circumstances of that death were that Mr. Bell was 

with his friends at basically a whorehouse. His friends were criminals. There was a fight. They went outside. An undercover officer 

said there was an allegation that guns were being brought back. 

Mr. Bell and his friends got in a car. They ran over one of the officers. The question at issue was whether an undercover identified 

himself as a police officer before they were shot. And that officer 

and several others opened fire on Mr. Bell. 

You have a situation of a young African American man being 

killed by police, which is a tragic circumstance, a young man with 

promise. On the other hand, you had officers who were exactly the 

kind of officers who you want to be drawing into the police, two African Americans and an Arab American, who I don’t think can be 

in conscious accused of acting in malice, being put on trial for murder. And I do not believe those officers got sufficient support during 

that trial. 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, if I can have just a little more time for this 

last question, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentleman from Michigan is recognized for an 

additional 2 minutes. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

Detective Conlon, 3 days ago the New York Police Department, 

already saddled with corruption scandals, saw its image further 

tainted on Tuesday with the conviction of a detective for planting 

drugs on a woman and her boyfriend. Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. CONLON. The report lines of the story, yes. 

Mr. CONYERS. Right. I am reading directly from the New York 

Times, and I will put this in the record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

64 


71056B-1.eps
65 

Mr. CONYERS. The bench verdict stemmed from acts committed 

in 2007 by a 14-year veteran of the department who worked in the 

Brooklyn South unit. In announcing the verdict, the judge scolded 

the department for what he described as a widespread culture of 

corruption endemic in its drug units. I thought I was not naive, he 

said, the judge, but even this court was shocked not only by seeming persuasive scope of misconduct, but even more distressingly by 

the seeming casualness by which such conduct is employed. 

Your comments, please. 

Mr. CONLON. It is a disgrace, and it is a shame. I worked in narcotics. I have been with the police department, and very proud of 

my time there. That, to me, is the worst scandal in recent memory, 


71056B-2.eps
66 

even though there were a number of former and present officers in 

a different part of Brooklyn arrested for guns. 

To arrest somebody without cause is, in effect, to kidnap. It is 

a truly, truly awful thing. And to do it just to not get yelled at by 

your boss or to have enough activity is absolutely appalling. And 

I certainly don’t agree with the categorization as widespread in any 

way. It certainly was not my experience. But I agree that it is appalling and shameful. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Michigan. 

Ms. Chu. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I have a question for Mr. Shelton, but before I begin with my 

questions, I would like to take a moment to say that the title for 

this hearing is rather ironic: 21st Century Law Enforcement: How 

Smart Policing Targets Criminal Behavior. We are using the 

phrase ‘‘smart policing’’ as a synonym for racial profiling, and I 

don’t think it is very smart at all to profile individuals based on 

their race. 

In order to properly address the issue at hand, we have to really 

get to the root of the problem, and we must first be honest with 

each other and acknowledge what we are truly discussing here, and 

that is the question of whether it is ever acceptable to single people 

out for heightened scrutiny based on their race, ethnicity, religion 

or national origin. 

And as a chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, I am glad we have this opportunity to discuss this issue, because Asian Pacific Americans, like other minority communities, 

have felt the significant effects of it, from the Chinese Exclusion 

Act to the Japanese internment, to post-9/11 racial profiling of 

Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asian Americans and 

Sikh Americans. I believe racial profiling is a hurtful, ineffective, 

and a destructive law enforcement method, and it hurts us all. 

So, Mr. Shelton, do you believe that it is ever justifiable to treat 

law-abiding citizens differently in the name of carrying out the 

law? 

Mr. SHELTON. Absolutely not. There is no excuse for it. Again, it 

clearly undermines the trust that is absolutely necessary for effective policing. 

Congresswoman, one of the issues that hasn’t been discussed 

here that we may have to have a second hearing on to raise is how 

often these pretextual traffic stops, as we talk about the use of racial profiling, end up also being accounted as we look at issues of 

what we call the hit rate. That is, as we talk about stops and their 

being effective in actually preventing crime, how often do we find 

those stops actually result in actually some paraphernalia, some illegal substance being found in automobiles and cars? We find yet 

again we have another process which undercuts that trust and integrity. 

To be able to be effective, to be able to prevent crimes, which is 

what we all want, we know that law enforcement, a presence in our 

communities, is very helpful, but it also has to come along with the 

trust of those community people they serve. When you have situations in which people choose who their suspects are simply because 

67 

of the race of the person, the pretextual reason for stopping them 

is because they believe that because of their race, they either probably just committed a crime or are on their way to commit a crime, 

and they find that indeed when they stopped them, none of that 

has happened. 

It is a misuse of resources. It again undercuts that very, very important tenet with effective law enforcement. So there actually is 

no reason, no acceptable reason, for choosing someone simply because of the race, ethnicity or point of national origin. 

Ms. CHU. And you are saying that the hit rate is actually low? 

Mr. SHELTON. Absolutely. When you look at the hit rates, particularly if we look at our Department of Justice, our Department 

of Justice does collect data, but only with Federal law enforcement 

agencies that have law enforcement encounter responsibilities. 

When you overlap those stops, the times that they detain people, 

and you look at how often that ends up resulting in them actually 

finding that there was a wrongdoing, something illegal is happening, you see that it becomes even worse. The problem is even 

worse than they perceived. 

If we looked at that data—and data is important for effective law 

enforcement—what you find is there are fewer reasons, less reasons to stop African Americans, because we are less likely to have 

that stop result in there being that kind of paraphernalia in our 

car, the illegal substances. 

Ms. CHU. Well, Mr. Harris, I would like to ask you about a new 

type of profiling that seems to be occurring, because it seems to 

have extended itself to immigration status profiling. And under 

Alabama H.B. 56, law enforcement is encouraged to profile minorities, many of whom are of Hispanic descent, by stopping them and 

inquiring as to their immigration status. In fact, many Alabama 

residents are now taking profiling into their own hands and asking 

minorities for proof of citizenship when they renew their leases, try 

to open up a utility account or even go shopping. 

What is the danger of civilians racially profiling other civilians? 

Mr. HARRIS. The danger of civilians engaging in behavior like 

that is that to the extent that law enforcement does it, it has some 

of the effects we have discussed, but if they are civilians, there is 

no training whatsoever, none whatsoever. So whatever would happen in an interaction like that, the person is not trained to recognize any documents, is not trained to know what to do if something 

is discovered. 

It seems, to me, like the worst of all possible worlds. We raise 

the stakes on people who appear to be of Latino or appear to be 

from one group or another, and then people come along who have 

no way to know whether anything that they learn is useful. And 

they have no way—nothing upon which to base their actions. 

The problem with laws like Alabama and the Arizona law, which 

require police to inquire about immigration status, is that there is 

nothing that they can do to see immigration status. They must fall 

back on appearance and accent, and that just leads them into 

profiling. I would not want to be a police officer in those places. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady from California. 

68 

On behalf of all of us, that melodious sound you just heard is 

summoning us to vote on the floor. But on behalf of all of us, thank 

you for your expertise, your perspective, your collegiality, frankly, 

toward one another and toward the Members of the Committee. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit to the Chair additional written questions for the witnesses, 

which we will forward and ask the witnesses to respond to as 

promptly as they can so their answers may be made part of the 

record. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit any additional materials for inclusion in the record. 

With that, again on behalf of all of us, thank you, have a good 

weekend, and we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:27 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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