Trust and Perception Take Center Stage at Fourth National
Symposium on Racial Profiling
Trust emerged as the clear theme of this year's racial profiling
conference. Law enforcement leaders from agencies that had dealt with
racial profiling allegations or court orders reiterated that theme in
discussing mistakes that they had made. Panelists explained that the
process of regaining the public's trust can be long and painful. They
had found out the hard way, that even when data collection proved that
their agencies were not guilty of racial profiling, anecdotes by
citizens held a lot more weight in the media and an ugly public
perception often remained. Only through a drawn out process of crisis
management could they repair that image.
The loss of public trust is dealt with frequently in corporate America.
So much so, that Kellogg Management Professor Daniel Diermeier makes a
living teaching executives what to do when things go wrong. During his
well received keynote speech, Diermeier discussed the details of a
Mercedes crisis in Europe. Even though it had nothing to do with law
enforcement, participants said that racial profiling allegations often
played out similarly. The following is a short version of the Mercedes
crisis and its management.
In Europe, parking is difficult to find. So Mercedes built a new urban
minivan that was small enough to park, but still safe to drive on the
same roads with big cars. The company had designed special safety
features to make sure the car would survive front end crash tests. When
an enterprising reporter conducted a safety test that caused the car to
roll-over, the company at first tried to point out that the test was not
conducted properly. Mercedes engineers tested and re-tested and
maintained that the car was safe. No one seemed to hear them. The story
of the bad test spread throughout the media. Despite the fact that the
story was not necessarily scientifically accurate, the perception stuck.
Mercedes had to find a way to turn the crisis into an opportunity.
Even though there was no evidence that the car was unsafe, Mercedes
recalled it, redesigned it and recovered. The recovery involved
launching a campaign about how Mercedes had re-invented safety with
that very same car. The Mercedes executives felt that the expense of
creating what was probably an unnecessary fix was well worth it,
especially when the Mercedes reputation was at stake. Conference
participants immediately connected with that analogy, many asking to
know more about how to turn a crisis into an opportunity.
Many speakers reminded participants that it was important to involve the
community in the process of traffic stop data collection from the
beginning. Many had set up task forces involving community leaders,
police union representatives, and officers on the street. Everyone was
to get their concerns expressed before the data was collected and
released. They also stressed the importance of using an objective
research partner such as an area university to give data credibility.
Those who had felt that they dealt successfully with the issue of racial
profiling had made sure that they had created a clearly written policy
against racial profiling, a complaint process, and training and
disciplinary policies.
While most panelists said they felt that data collection was not a
panacea, they did feel that it plays an important role in preventing
racial profiling. Michael Smith, professor of criminology, University of
South Carolina, explained the process of Internal Benchmarking in
weeding out the few bad apples. Jeff Ridgeway, statistician, Rand
Corporation outlined a process of analysis used in Oakland, that
supported the police department's claim that officers did not practice
racial profiling.
Wesley Skogan, Professor, Northwestern University, Institute for Policy
Research, predicted that immigration would be the major issue for law
enforcement in the 21st century. Skogan studied the Chicago police
department for ten years and specializes in recognizing the unique needs
of Hispanic immigrants. He said that Chicago police now realize that
many immigrants come from a country where police support oppressive
regimes. Therefore it is particularly difficult to win their trust.
Language and cultural miscommunications can also create problems. He
said that mass media campaigns did not seem to work to recruit Hispanics
for community policing meetings. It was the one on one contact that
worked the best.
Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas got a tremendous response with his
practical approach to the issue. Serpas says he listens to community
leaders but also urges his officers to learn the neighborhood at the
front porch. Serpas called for a back to the basics approach.
"It's police work to know the names of the people in your neighborhood,
their kids, their family names," said Serpas. "They'll trust you because
you stopped long enough to know who they were."
Serpas says he counts on that trust for greater intelligence gathering
and the community has supported his officers in a crisis because of
trust.
Kingston, Ontario Police Chief William Closs said that his agency is the
only one in Canada to collect data on traffic stops. Even though most
Canadian agencies deny that racial profiling even exists he realized
that they had a perception problem after his officers pulled a gun on
the same innocent teenager during two different traffic stops. As a
result his agency holds town meetings on a regular basis and he views
data collection as a bridge to win back public trust.
Our thanks to the many law enforcement executives who shared their case
studies, RAND Corporation for partnering with us, the researchers who
shared their timely information, and the hundreds of participants from
the United States and Canada who were open and honest in their
discussions during Northwestern University Center for Public Safety's
Fourth National Symposium on Racial Profiling. Special thanks to Keynote
Speaker, Professor Daniel Diermeier, for his excellent presentation,
Leading under Pressure, and to Professor David Harris for his luncheon
address, and to Harley Davidson Motor Company for sponsoring the
luncheon.
Please contact director Alex Weiss 800-323-4011 with suggestions for
next year's symposium. We look forward to seeing you then.
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Most of Video Clips are available in DVD
sets (2 DVDs) for PC use only. Check the table below for available video
clips -
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Name |
Title |
Video Clip |
Opening Address |
Philip J. Cline |
Superintendent, Chicago Police Department |
|
Thomas F. Gibbons |
Dean, Northwestern University School of
Continuing Studies |
Jack Riley |
Associate Director, RAND Corp. |
Tim Martin |
Secretary, Illinois Department of
Transportation |
Keynote Speech |
Daniel Diermeier |
IBM Distinguished Professor of Regulation
and Competitive Practice, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of
Management |
|
Racial Profiling -
Historical Overview |
Alexander Weiss, Ph.D. |
Director, Northwestern University Center for
Public Safety |
|
Strategies for Internal
Control |
Robert McNeilly |
Chief, Pittsburgh Police Department |
|
The Cincinnati Experience |
Cindy Combs |
Lieutenant Colonel, Cincinnati Police
Department |
|
Richard Jerome |
Cincinnati Court Monitor |
|
S. Gregory Baker |
Executive Manager of Police Relations,
Cincinnati Police Department |
|
Jeremy Wilson |
Associate Behavioral Scientist, RAND
Corporation |
|
The
State Police Experience |
Lowell Porter |
Director, Washington Traffic Safety
Commission |
|
Boyd W. Butler |
Chief, Research and Development, Illinois
State Police |
|
Suzan Cogswell |
Research Administrator, Ohio State Highway
Patrol |
|
John Fogerty |
Chief, Inland Division, California Highway
Patrol |
|
Michael Finamore |
Lt. Colonel, Ohio State Highway Patrol |
|
Policing and the Hispanic
Community |
Wesley G. Skogan |
Professor, Institute for Policy Research,
Northwestern University |
|
The Community Perspective |
Karen Narasaki |
Executive Director, National Asian Pacific
American Legal Consortium |
|
Adam Schwartz |
Staff Attorney, ACLU |
|
Hilary O. Shelton |
Director, Washington Bureau, NAACP |
|
Bishop Filipe Teixeira, OFSJC. |
St. Martin De Porres Catholic Church,
Brockton, Massachusetts |
|
Lashawn Warren |
Legislative Counsel, ACLU |
|
Ana Yanez-Correa |
Policy Director, League of United Latin
American Citizens of Texas |
|
The Oakland Experience |
Ronald Davis |
Captain, Oakland Police Department |
|
Jeffrey Grogger |
Professor, Harris School of Public Policy,
University of Chicago |
|
Greg Ridgeway |
Statistician, RAND Corporation |
|
Crime Control and Racial
Profiling |
Ronal Serpas |
Chief, Nashville Police Department |
|
Internal Benchmarking |
Michael R. Smith |
Professor, Department of Criminology,
University of South Carolina |
|
The Highland Park
Experience |
Daniel Dahlberg |
Chief, Highland Park Police Department (ret) |
|
Steven M. Elrod |
Partner, Holland and Knight LLP |
David M. Limardi |
City Manager, Highland Park |
Paul Shafer |
Chief, Highland Park Police Department |
Community Expectations
After Data Collection |
William J. Closs |
Kingston, Police Department, Ontario, Canada |
|
Robert Jones |
Chief, Gurnee Police Department, President,
Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police |
|
Benchmarking Spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel Format)
Assessing Racial
Profiling
Study of Racial
Profiling in Oakland Finds Mixed Evidence
New
Federal Guidelines Ban Racial Profiling