Utah to study racial profiling

After lawmakers recommended scrapping a program aimed at pinning down the issue of racial profiling, Utah is taking a fresh approach to evaluating the issue.

The Legislature approved approved $45,000 for the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice to evaluate police contact with residents.

The funding will be used for a study, modeled after a federal study for 2002, which will look at variables including race, age, gender and location, said Rep. Jennifer Seelig, D-Salt Lake.

"My goal with this particular item is to use it as a tool to measure administrative performance, particularly discretionary, in law enforcement," Seelig said. "Our number one intent is to sit down ... and see where it might provide an opportunity for training. We could target (training) with demographics, if needed, to certain geographic locations."

Palmer DePaulis, executive director of the Department of Community and Culture, said the results could be used in administrative policy and training. To date, accounts of racial profiling are anecdotal.

"The information we get will help us, certainly, form the right opinions," DePaulis said. "It will be based on information that is at least information we can look at and say it's good data."

DePaulis has been working on the issue since last summer when lawmakers had recommended abandoning the state's effort to look at the issue after hearing on whether a 2002 law was working.

The law requires officers to note the race of those they stop, and gives people the option to mark their race on their driver's license. The interim committee did recommend keeping in place the driver's license as a source of data for potential future research in other areas.

All provisions of that law remain in place, according to the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel.

Former Salt Lake Democratic Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, who sponsored the 2002 law, said the study is a step in the right direction.

"It puts the right questions on the table," he said. "Will $45,000 give them everything they need? I'm not sure. ... It may take additional resources to do it at the level it needs to be done."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com