Using Data to Address Biased Policing.

• Author: Barone, Ken

Associate Director, Institute for Municipal & Regional Policy, Hartford (CT)

This article was originally published in the National Traffic Law Center's Between the Lines newsletter in May 2022 under NHTSA cooperative agreement 693JJ91950010. It is reprinted here with the permission ot the National Traffic Law Center.

Editor's Note: The concept of "defunding police" has recently gained popularity among those seeking reform in law enforcement. In fact, a handful of jurisdictions in the United Sates have embraced this idea and turned over traffic enforcement, along with the funding for it, to non-police agencies. (1) Most jurisdictions, however, recognize the inherent danger faced by those enforcing traffic laws and continue the practice of traffic enforcement by law enforcement officers. How then, are those agencies balancing the public appetite for positive changes in law enforcement, while maintaining safety for the motoring public? This is the second Between the Lines article in a two-part series examining this issue. Last month's article examined how local leadership can embrace the public's expectations for equity and implement policies and procedures to create an environment of equitable traffic law enforcement while also keeping the motoring public safe.This month's edition examines Connecticut's data-driven approach to address biased policing.

Disparities in the criminal justice system, particularly police enforcement, have been a major source of political protest and social unrest in the United States. Motor vehicle enforcement is a common focus of these conversations since it is the public's most frequent interaction with law enforcement. Connecticut has spent more than a decade trying to understand these routine interactions and move beyond anecdotal conversations and develop robust data collection and analysis programs.

Connecticut first enacted an anti-racial profiling law in 1999. (2) A well-publicized 2(11 I case of police profiling in East Haven, CT (3) renewed public and legislative attention to the efficacy of the state's existing racial profiling law. Legislators responded by strengthening the state law, which had largely been ignored a few years after its initial passage in 1999. The reforms established a 20-member advisory board to help with the development, implementation, and oversight of the new law. Advisory board members consist of advocates, law enforcement administrators, academics, policymakers, and community members. The board has continually worked to create an efficient data collection system, centralized traffic stop repository, and a rigorous analytical process.

The new law allowed for the creation of a robust, data-driven system for evaluating and addressing concerns about racial profiling. To date, we have collected over 104 million data points from 4 million traffic stops. Unique to Connecticut's approach is the application of multiple...