Solutions:
Policy-makers should confront the problems posed by inadequate reporting procedures and provide departments with a framework for consistent data submission that will produce usable and cost-effective data analysis. Law enforcement agencies and taxpayers invest significant resources in data collection and deserve accurate data comparisons and analysis.
Agencies should not only submit their annual reports to their local governing bodies (to best maintain local oversight), but they should also submit their reports to an independent, neutral, centralized agency authorized to implement the above-mentioned standardized reporting format. This independent statewide repository would be in the best position to monitor compliance with S.B. 1074, collect and maintain data on a statewide level, and produce an annual statewide analysis of the data. Furthermore, it would effectively enable law enforcement agencies to compare their data to other departments’ data. Finally, the repository would aid law enforcement agencies, policy-makers, and the public in accessing racial profiling data and addressing racial profiling issues. TCJC is willing to serve as a technical advisor in the implementation of a new statewide repository and will continue to assist law enforcement with technical questions.
Currently, Texas law enforcement agencies do not collect information on stops that do not result in a citation or arrest: as such, the race of motorists who are stopped (and possibly searched) but not issued a citation or arrested is not tracked under the law. Likewise, agencies are not required to collect contraband data; therefore, though it can be determined how many searches are being conducted by most departments, it cannot always be determined if those searches are actually productive. Finally, agencies are not required to differentiate resident from non-resident motorists; this prevents comparisons of stopped motorists (many of whom may be commuters or out-of-towners) with local Census data to determine racial disparities in traffic stops. Texas agencies should separately collect, analyze, and audit non-citation data (including warning and release data), jurisdiction data, and contraband data, which would provide the state access to a more useful, concrete, and detailed set of state racial profiling data for a given year – a dataset that would allow for more serious efforts at achieving departmental accountability and transparency for the public.