Chiefs: Police profiling reports are flawed

HARTFORD >> Connecticut police officials say independent reviews have found serious flaws with reports that police officers stop minority drivers at disproportionate rates, but analysts stand by their work and a civil rights group says police haven’t been forthcoming in casting doubts about the figures.

A Central Connecticut State University institute has produced the reports on the disproportionate rates while also noting its data do not prove officers were engaged in racial profil-

ing. It has stood by its reports amid police criticism and, on Thursday, said its method for analyzing traffic stop data is the best in the country.

In recent written testimony, the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association told the legislature’s Judiciary Committee the institute’s reports have provided “only biased and superficial conclusions.” The association referred to independent reviews that question the validity of analyses of traffic stop data by the university’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy.

“Several Connecticut Police Departments have enlisted their own independent analytical experts for a review of IMRP reports,” the association wrote. “Each analytical and scientific review has concluded that IMRP’s reports are seriously flawed and based on unscientific assumptions.”

But the association has not released details of the reviews or said which police departments commissioned them. And its comments and lack of elaboration have drawn scrutiny from the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, which has asked all police departments in the state for copies of any independent reviews.

“Instead of relying on shadow reports in an attempt to discredit solid evidence of racially biased policing in Connecticut, the chiefs of police should be working to end discriminatory policing by creating greater police accountability and transparency,” said David McGuire, executive director of the Connecticut ACLU and a member of a state advisory board that oversees the institute’s research.

The testimony was signed by the association and by Berlin Police Chief Paul Fitzgerald and Farmington Police Chief Paul Melanson, legislation liaisons for the group.

State law requires all police officers in Connecticut to record information from each traffic stop, including race, ethnicity, the reason for the stop and actions taken.

The most recent data analyzed by the institute showed 14 percent of all traffic stops by police statewide from October 2014 to September 2015 involved black drivers, when black people of driving age comprised 9 percent of the population. Nearly 13 percent of traffic stops involved Hispanic drivers, when driving-age Hispanics comprised 12 percent of Connecticut residents. Some local departments had higher disparities.

Fitzgerald said in an interview Wednesday he hasn’t seen any of the independent analyses and didn’t know which towns commissioned them. But he said that many police chiefs have issues with the institute’s methods. He said the institute’s analyses of some towns, for example, don’t take into account the fact that their police often stop drivers from neighboring cities with higher minority populations.

Fitzgerald also took exception to the institute’s findings on stops during daylight hours. The institute said that during the day when officers could see the race and ethnicity of drivers, Hispanics were nearly 14 percent more likely to be pulled over and blacks were about 7 percent more likely to be stopped than they were at night. But Fitzgerald disagreed, saying it’s difficult to identify drivers’ ethnicity during the day.

Institute Director Andrew Clark said in an interview Thursday that it has developed what he called “the best process in the country bar none” to analyze traffic stop data. He said that process has become a model for police departments worldwide.

“This was not some fly-bynight operation,” Clark said. “This took years to develop. We looked across the country. We talked to researchers internationally. Some of our researchers have submitted their work to peer review and are in the process of being published.”

Messages for Melanson and other police chiefs were not been immediately returned.