Arkansas Task Force Urges Racial Profiling Site
A racial profiling task force recommended Wednesday that the Arkansas State Police be responsible for keeping a centralized database that tracks racial profiling complaints. The state police would use a toll-free hot line and e-mail address to gather the complaints, and the information would be compiled for a report to the governor, Legislative Council and Legislative Black Caucus, the task force report said. The recommendation is one of nine made by the task force, which was created by Act 1207 of 2003 to study racial profiling in Arkansas and report back to the Legislature and Gov. Mike Huckabee. Act 1207, which was sponsored by Sen. Henry “Hank” Wilkins IV, D-Pine Bluff, required law enforcement agencies to establish policies prohibiting officers from relying on race, ethnicity, national origin or religion in deciding whom to pull over. It also required agencies to investigate allegations of racial profiling, and to provide training to help officers avoid it. [more]