The Cincinnati Enquirer Cincinnati officials say they want to be national leaders in developing a plan against racial profiling. Hundreds of police departments nationwide have started tracking the races of drivers stopped by officers. They've compiled these statistics over the past two years in response to mounting public criticism that some officers treat minorities differently than they do white people. Researchers with the University of Southern California analyze them.
Police say it takes a minute to answer the questions.
Houston's 5,000 officers in August 1999 started inputting drivers' races, ages and sexes into cruiser computers. Troopers throughout Washington state, collecting data since October 1999, are evaluated every three months based on supervisors' reviews of the data on traffic stops. A for Asian, B for African-American, H for Hispanic, I for American Indian or Alaskan native, M for Middle Eastern, P for Polynesian or Pacific Islander, W for white, Z for other and U for unknown. But many police officials and researchers say counting isn't enough, that knowing the numbers can't fix why it happens. That's what we need to be talking about.