[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 34 (Tuesday, March 24, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1387-H1389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               TRAFFIC STOPS STATISTICS STUDY ACT OF 1998

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill 
(H.R. 118) to provide for the collection of data on traffic stops, as 
amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                                H.R. 118

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Traffic Stops Statistics 
     Study Act of 1998''.

     SEC. 2. ATTORNEY GENERAL TO COLLECT.

       The Attorney General shall conduct a study of stops for 
     routine traffic violations by law enforcement officers. Such 
     study shall include collection and analysis of appropriate 
     available data. The study shall include consideration of the 
     following factors, among others:
       (1) The number of individuals stopped for routine traffic 
     violations.
       (2) Identifying characteristics of the individual stopped, 
     including the race and or ethnicity as well as the 
     approximate age of that individual.
       (3) The traffic infraction alleged to have been committed 
     that led to the stop.
       (4) Whether a search was instituted as a result of the 
     stop.
       (5) How the search was instituted.
       (6) The rationale for the search.
       (7) Whether any contraband was discovered in the course of 
     the search.
       (8) The nature of such contraband.
       (9) Whether any warning or citation was issued as a result 
     of the stop.
       (10) Whether an arrest was made as a result of either the 
     stop or the search.
       (11) The benefit of traffic stops with regard to the 
     interdiction of drugs and the proceeds of drug trafficking, 
     including the approximate quantity of drugs and value of drug 
     proceeds seized on an annual basis as a result of routine 
     traffic stops.

     SEC. 3. LIMITATION ON USE OF DATA.

       Data acquired under this section shall be used only for 
     research or statistical purposes and may not contain any 
     information that may reveal the identity of any individual 
     who is stopped or any law enforcement officer. Data acquired 
     under this section shall not be used in any legal or 
     administrative proceeding to establish an inference of 
     discrimination on the basis of particular identifying 
     characteristics.

     SEC. 4. RESULTS OF STUDY.

       Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Attorney General shall report the results of 
     the study conducted under this Act to Congress.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde).
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 118, the Traffic Stops Statistics Act of 1997, was 
introduced by the ranking minority member of the Committee on the 
Judiciary, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers). This bill has 
bipartisan support and the support of the Department of Justice. H.R. 
118 will authorize the Attorney General to conduct a study of the 
reasons why police make routine traffic stops.
  Racial profiling is a law enforcement method that uses race, age, 
dress, vehicle type, and other factors to identify people who police 
believe are more likely to be involved in crimes.
  Profiling is often used to stop those suspected of crimes without any 
indicia of criminal activity. However, there is a growing number of 
reported incidents and allegations that black American males are being 
stopped for no reason. They are merely stopped, not given tickets, not 
given citations.
  The fourth amendment provides, ``The right of the people to be secure 
in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable 
searches and seizures, shall not be violated.'' Traffic stops based 
solely on race are wrong and must not be tolerated.
  The study will provide for the collection of data that will help 
determine whether police are using race as the predominant reason to 
stop motorists of color. The study will include consideration of such 
factors as the race and age of the individual stopped; the traffic 
infraction alleged to have been committed that led to the stop, if any; 
whether a search was instituted; the rationale for the search; whether 
contraband was discovered during the search; whether any warning or 
citation was issued as a result of the stop; and whether an arrest was 
made as a result of the stop or search.
  The study will also report on the beneficial efforts of law 
enforcement departments to fight the war on drugs by recording the 
approximate quantity of the drugs and the value of drug proceeds seized 
on an annual basis as a result of traffic stops. The Department of 
Justice will submit the results of the 2-year study to Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill, and I am pleased to support it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to endorse the remarks made by the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the Chairman of the Committee on 
the Judiciary, about the Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act. I am 
deeply indebted to him for moving this bill from the committee to the 
full House.
  This is an offense and an activity that is very familiar to many 
people. It is something that has happened to more African Americans, 
particularly males, than I would care to admit today on the floor of 
the House of Representatives. There are very few of us in this country 
who have not been stopped at one time for an alleged traffic violation 
that we constituted really simple racial harassment.
  Mr. Speaker, I say this as a friend of law enforcement, as one who 
has always received the support and has worked closely with police 
organizations across the country for many years. Law enforcement 
officers may admit to isolated instances of racially

[[Page H1388]]

targeted police stops, but very few will concede that this harassment 
is routine, that it happens literally everywhere; and it is to this 
complaint that this study, this examination of this peculiar kind of 
incident in law enforcement, is directed.
  There have been limited studies that have occurred which have found 
that as many as 72 percent of all routine traffic stops occur with 
African-American drivers in a population that we all know is not over 
15 percent. The coincidence need not to be confirmed.
  In the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, we had a case in which the 
court itself, in 1993, came to a conclusion that we think will be 
supported by the study that is proposed in the bill before us. That was 
the case of a police officer from Santa Monica who was found to have 
violated the rights of 2 African-American men that he stopped and 
subsequently arrested at gunpoint. The case is cited here because it 
was an example of how police routinely violate the constitutional 
rights of others by stopping them without just cause. There must be a 
cause to stop someone. It cannot be subjective; it cannot be racially 
motivated. There has to be a reason.
  Now, for those who might say, well, why do we not just go to court 
and let the lawsuits flow, the lawsuits cannot solve this problem. 
First of all, the individual costs that must be borne by plaintiffs 
would, in most cases, be more than they could bear; and it would also 
take considerable amounts of time.
  Last year, in November, the American Civil Liberties Union sought a 
fine for contempt of court against the State police near us, the 
Maryland State police, arguing that police were still conducting a 
disproportionate number of searches of cars driven by African Americans 
2 years after they had agreed to stop that practice as a result of a 
1992 lawsuit. In other words, they were violating the agreement.
  The State police statistics show that 73 percent of the cars stopped 
and searched on interstate I-95 a few blocks from here, between 
Baltimore and Delaware, since January of 1995, were conducted on the 
cars of African Americans, despite the fact that only 14 percent of 
those driving along that part of the freeway were African Americans. 
Moreover, there was nothing found in 70 percent of those searches.
  Mr. Speaker, this and other evidence suggests that African Americans 
are routinely being stopped by law enforcement simply because of the 
color of their skin, and it is precisely this sort of unfair treatment 
that leads many people to distrust the criminal justice system. If we 
expect everyone to abide by the rules, and we do, we must ensure that 
those rules are applied equally to everybody, and they are frequently 
not.
  In many ways, this sort of harassment is even more serious than 
police brutality itself. Not to minimize police brutality, but these 
are insidious ways of antagonizing people, and this treatment must be 
examined.

                              {time}  1430

  The measure before us today will not stop or punish the treatment, it 
will investigate as to whether it in fact goes on in the proportions 
that our hearings suggest that it does.
  Unlike police brutality, which frequently comes to light, these 
punishments are like knife cuts. They are not reported. There is 
nothing done with them. They are wounds to the psyche that spread, they 
never heal, and they are painful to those that sustain them.
  So what we are saying is that this is not an anti-police piece of 
legislation, it is a piece of legislation to determine whether a 
practice that we have long suspected is still in fact going on. As we 
know here in this Chamber, the Supreme Court has expanded police powers 
by holding that an individual need not be informed that they have a 
right not to consent to a search of their vehicles.
  There is a bit of flux in the law on this subject. So this measure, 
that authorizes the Attorney General to conduct a study regarding the 
race and alleged infractions of drivers stopped by the police, is 
designed to provide us with specific information regarding the extent 
of the problem, and will provide information as to the rationale for 
any search made subsequent to a traffic stop, and of course, any 
contraband recovered in that search.
  Through this study, I hope we will increase police awareness of the 
problem involved of some few police officers targeting minorities 
routinely for car searches when there is, indeed, no justification. 
Perhaps we can discover the extent of the problem, and hopefully reduce 
the number of discriminatory, inappropriate traffic stops by police 
officers made based on the color of the skin of the motorist.
  Because the study proposed by this legislation presents a reasonable 
way of dealing with an issue I have been hearing complaints about 
throughout my service in the Congress, I deeply appreciate my 
colleagues on the Committee on the Judiciary and our chairman for 
bringing this measure to the floor, and I urge that we support the 
bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman 
from Texas (Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee).
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for yielding time to me. I thank the gentleman 
for his leadership on this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) 
for the expeditious manner in which this legislation came to the floor, 
and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) as well for consenting and 
working with the ranking member in realizing the importance of the 
information that we are trying to secure.
  I would like to emphasize one or two or three or four different 
points on this issue.
  One, let me say, we do not come to the floor of the House to 
personalize our presentations, but as the mother of a young black boy, 
and as someone who relates constantly to young African American 
teenagers, along with other ethnic groups in my community, this is an 
issue that has long confronted us, and one that we have, in some 
instances, accepted and suffered in silence.
  For every young child is taught to respect the blue and white, or the 
men and women in blue, of the law enforcement officer of your 
community. We as parents still do that. But the tragedy of teaching 
them that kind of respect sometimes befalls them in a negative way.
  It is not infrequently that I talk to parents of minority children 
who are fearful of having them drive throughout their community or be 
in neighborhoods where they might be suspected of acting illegally, 
albeit they are there for legitimate and legal reasons.
  Just recently I had a family tell me that after they moved into a 
very prominent neighborhood, and their young male African American son 
was going home to his home, that about 10 or so police cars ran up into 
the driveway to begin to shine flashlights in his face and wonder why 
he was sticking a key in the front door. Though this is not a traffic 
stop, these are incidents that occur on a regular basis. So this study 
is in fact needed.
  I am delighted that the Attorney General will not isolate the study 
but will study the Nation, for it will respect and respond to the 
issues dealing with race and ethnicity, particularly in groups of 
Asians, African Americans, and Hispanics, those who are traveling in 
modern cars and those whose cars may not look too recent.
  It is important to find out whether the traffic infraction alleged to 
have been committed was committed and what was it that led to a stop; 
whether a search was instituted as a result of the stop; how the search 
was instituted; the rationale for the search; whether any warning or 
citation was issued as a result of the stop; and whether an arrest was 
made as a result of either the stop or the search.
  It is important to emphasize again that although African Americans 
make up between 12 and 14 percent, they make up 72 percent of all 
routine traffic stops. This study will help us determine what occurs in 
the Asian community, or what occurs to the new immigrants in the 
Vietnamese community, what occurs in the Hispanic community, in all 
parts of our country.
  Just a few doors away from this House we can find examples of 
mistreatment of those who are African American and minorities. Robert 
Wilkins is a Harvard Law School graduate, a public defender here in the 
District of Columbia. Mr. Wilkins is also an African American.

[[Page H1389]]

  In May, 1992, Mr. Wilkins went to a family funeral with his aunt, 
uncle, and cousin. A State trooper stopped Mr. Wilkins for doing 60 
miles per hour on the interstate, well under the speed limit, and based 
upon this grave crime, ordered all the family members out of the car so 
he could search for drugs. In this time of grief and tragedy, they had 
to be disturbed with this kind of treatment. Of course, no drugs were 
found.
  The State trooper in the case claimed the rented Cadillac the family 
was driving made him think them suspicious, as well as the fact that 
Mr. Wilkins appeared nervous when stopped. Are we to believe that being 
nervous when pulled over by a State trooper is cause to suspect that a 
respected attorney returning from a family funeral is a drug 
trafficker? Are we to believe that the race of the Wilkins family was 
not the reason that he and his family were ordered out of their vehicle 
on a busy highway?
  Under the Fourth Amendment, a law enforcement official must have 
reasonable grounds to suspect illegal activity before searching a car 
during a routine traffic stop. The dislike or suspicion of a person's 
race does not constitute reasonable grounds.
  Again, reemphasizing the point made by the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Conyers), how interesting it is that even after getting an 
agreement through the ACLU, we find some 2 years later that these 
stoppings of individuals of African American heritage are still 
occurring.
  In fact, despite the agreement that was gotten by the ACLU, we find 
that State police statistics show that 73 percent of cars stopped and 
searched on I-95 between Baltimore and Delaware since 1995 were those 
of African Americans, again, despite the fact that only 14 percent of 
those driving along that stretch were African Americans.
  This is a piece of legislation that is long overdue, and its emphasis 
should not detract from the fact that its importance is the right of 
the protection of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is the 
protection of those constitutional provisions that will apply to all 
citizens.
  We are long overdue in trying to find out why we have this kind of 
disparate treatment, why many of us as parents of African American 
children are fearful of sending our young people out on the freeways 
and highways of America. If this is to be a country for all people, 
then the laws must treat everyone fairly. I appreciate very much the 
efforts of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) for this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of Congressman Conyer's 
H.R. 118, the ``Traffic Stops Statistics Act of 1997.'' This 
legislation is an important step towards addressing the discrimination 
faced by minorities on our nation's roadways.
  The Traffic Stops Statistics Act authorizes the Attorney General to 
conduct a study of stops for routine traffic violations by law 
enforcement officers. The study is to include consideration of such 
factors as: (1) the race and ethnicity of the individual stopped; (2) 
the traffic infraction alleged to have been committed that led to the 
stop; (3) whether a search was instituted as a result of the stop; (4) 
how the search was instituted; (5) the rationale for the search; (6) 
whether any warning or citation was issued as a result of the stop; and 
(7) whether an arrest was made as a result of either the stop or the 
search.
  The need for such a study becomes readily apparent when we review the 
few, limited studies already conducted in this area. Those studies 
reveal that although African Americans make up only 14 percent of the 
population, they account for 72 percent of all routine traffic stops. 
To make matters worse, far more blacks stopped for traffic violations 
are subject to car searches than comparable whites. The numbers are so 
out of line that coincidence is impossible.
  For an example of the arbitrary and discriminatory treatment of 
African Americans on our nation's roadways, we need not look far beyond 
the Beltway. Robert Wilkins is a Harvard Law School graduate--a public 
defender here in the District of Columbia. Mr. Wilkins is also African-
American. In May 1992, Mr. Wilkins went to a family funeral with his 
aunt, uncle, and cousin. A state trooper stopped Mr. Wilkins for doing 
60 miles per hour on the interstate, and based upon this grave crime 
ordered all the family members out of the car so he could search for 
drugs. Of course, no drugs were found. The state trooper in this case 
claimed the rented Cadillac the family was driving made him suspicious, 
as did the fact that Mr. Wilkins appeared nervous when stopped. Are we 
to believe that being nervous when pulled over by a state trooper is 
cause to suspect that a respected attorney returning from a family 
funeral is a drug trafficker? Are we to believe that the race of the 
Wilkins family was not the reason he and his family were ordered out of 
their vehicle on a busy highway? Under the Fourth Amendment, a law 
enforcement official must have reasonable grounds to suspect illegal 
activity before searching a car during a routine traffic stop. The 
dislike or suspicion of a person's race does not constitute reasonable 
grounds.
  In November 1996, the ACLU sought a fine for contempt of court 
against the Maryland State Police, arguing that police were still 
conducting a disproportionate number of drug searches of cars driven by 
African Americans almost two years after agreeing to remedy these 
practices as a result of a 1992 lawsuit. Despite the agreement, state 
police statistics show that 73 percent of cars stopped and searched on 
I-95 between Baltimore and Delaware since January, 1995 were those of 
African Americans, despite the fact that only 14 percent of persons 
driving on that stretch of road were black. Police found absolutely 
nothing in 70 percent of those searches.
  The Traffic Stops Statistics Act study will discourage law 
enforcement officers from such discriminatory treatment of minorities 
by discouraging the use of race as the primary factor in making 
determinations as to whe4ther or not to institute a car search. It will 
also provide statistical data as to the nature and extent of the 
problem of African Americans being targeted for traffic stops.
  I want to commend Mr. Conyers and his staff for their determination 
and tireless work in bringing this legislation before us today. I urge 
my colleagues to cast a vote today for fairness and justice and to vote 
in support of H.R. 118, the ``Traffic Stops Statistics Act.''
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote for this legislation.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.

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