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4/11/10 Why do I pay only $474 in Virginia income tax?

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Great New Books on Organizing:

In our last issue, virginia.organizing reported that the Virginia State Police had been collecting data on all traffic stops for several years. Luckily for our credibility, we added these words “at least according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.”

Following up on the September 2007 stories by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, we went to talk to high-level officers of the Virginia State Police. We found out that not everything “according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch” is true.

“The Virginia State Police were very open and cooperative. They made clear to us that they did not collect data on all traffic stops,” said Lloyd Woods, one of the VOP members who met with the State Police. “They assembled racial and ethnic data from all the summonses, arrests, and searches they performed. They did not record every traffic stop.”

That means that when the Times-Dispatch, based on their “review of [the] state police traffic-stop data,” stated that “Racial profiling is not a systemic problem on Virginia’s highways,” they lacked the evidence they claimed to have.

Is the distinction important? Does it matter that the Virginia State Police did not record the characteristics of all those drivers that just got a warning or where no action was taken? According to the publication, Understanding Race Data from Vehicle Stops: A Stakeholder’s Guide, published jointly by the Police Executive Research Forum and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, it matters a lot. That publication states:

“By excluding drivers who do not receive citations, a jurisdiction severely jeopardizes its ability to assess the existence of racially biased policing. . . The researcher could, with these limited data, identify bias where none exists or conclude there is no bias when, in fact, there is.”

“There is a reason why we have called on the State Police to collect data on all traffic stops since meeting with the Superintendent in 2002,” said Mary Randolph Preston, who was also in the meeting with the State Police, and who chaired a VOP panel that put demands to the State Police Superintendent in 2002. “There is a reason why the state police departments of Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, California and 16 other states collect data on each traffic stop. It’s the right thing to do to evaluate racial profiling on the highways.”

During the upcoming General Assembly session, VOP hopes there will be a dialogue on this issue. Senator Henry Marsh, who has previously introduced legislation calling for full-scale data collection, will be chair of the Senate Committee on Courts of Justice. VOP is looking forward to working with Senator Marsh to address data collection needs in the future. We continue to hope that the Governor, who has a strong background in data collection and patterns of racism, will also turn to this issue as one of the places where he can have a lasting impact. Please keep your attention on VOP alerts that you receive by e-mail.

To get involved with VOP’s Racial Profiling Campaign, contact VOP staffers Larry Yates at llyates@shentel.net or (540) 436-3432, or Richael Faithful at (757) 784-6046 or faithful@virginia-organizing.org.