( - promoted by Carnacki)
During the 2004 WV State Legislature, Your ACLU of WV, in coalition with other organizations, passed a racial profiling data collection act which mandated law enforcement agencies collect data on the race of persons they pulled over in addition to whether or not those persons were searched and whether those searches resulted in anything. The rules governing the study were established in 2006 and the results were released earlier this week. The stats do not bode well for the Mountain State: Although nearly 94 percent of the drivers stopped were white, the study found that blacks and Hispanics were at least 1.5 times more likely to be stopped by police. And once stopped, the study found, they were more likely to be arrested or receive a citation. Also, blacks and Hispanics were at least twice as likely to be searched. However, the study showed that once searched, whites were more likely to have drugs and other contraband on them than either blacks or Hispanics. Many people of color living in the Mountain State (In addition to people of color just passing through) as well as the civil libertarian community do not see the results as especially shocking: West Virginia NAACP President Kenneth Hale said in a statement that the results aren't surprising. But Hale said it's disappointing to see "that people of color are still being disproportionally singled out to be stopped and searched when they travel on the state's roads." Franklin Crabtree, executive director of the state's American Civil Liberties Union chapter, said researchers might not be able to say racial profiling exists, but circumstantial evidence suggests it. "This study indicates we civil libertarians have a lot of work to do in West Virginia," he said. Indeed we do have work to do. Be sure to read the article in today's Daily Mail. If you want to have a more complete understanding of what we are up against, read the comments. If you can, leave one of your own. More to come.
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