Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri, in conjunction with the Don’t Shoot Coalition and other community partners, announced the filing of The Fair and Impartial Policing Act, bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senator Jamilah Nasheed (D-St. Louis) and Representative Shamed Dogan (R-Ballwin).
The Fair and Impartial Policing Actaims to ensure that all Missourians are treated fairly by the government by enabling fair, positive, and protective police practices. The Act would expand reporting requirements, track pedestrian stops, require training on biased policing, and enact measures to hold Missouri’s law enforcement agencies and officers accountable when they use biased policing practices.
“Missourians of all communities deserve to have equal treatment under the law,” said Senator Nasheed. “The Fair and Impartial Policing Actis a step towards balancing an inequity that must be addressed.”
“Transparency is the friend, not the enemy of good policing,” explains Representative Dogan. “The Fair and Impartial Policing Actwill provide stronger analysis and the statistics necessary to recognize and applaud those who protect and serve all communities equally.”
“This bill is a commonsense measure that offers real solutions and gets us closer to justice for all Missourians,” said Jeffrey Mittman, Executive Director of the ACLU of Missouri. “We look forward to seeing this legislation continue to gain bipartisan support and ultimately be signed into law.”
For the past 15 years, Missouri’s Attorney General’s annual vehicle stops report has indicated that African Americans are almost twice as likely to be stopped, searched, and arrested as white drivers. The 2014 report stated that African-Americans were stopped at a rate 66 percent greater than expected, based on their proportion of the population of people aged 16 and older and were nearly two times more likely to be searched than whites. Hispanics were also nearly two times more likely than whites to be searched.