LANSING - Police department officials put about 30 area residents through the same training this weekend that officers have received to combat racial profiling.
Two-hour sessions on Saturday and Sunday drew about 15 people to the Harry Hill Vocational Center, 5815 Wise Road, to discuss profiling practices and learn about the department’s strategy to prevent it.
Racial profiling is a practice in which police take action based on race, ethnicity or national origin rather than illegal or suspicious activities.
“Historically, police officers were taught this. It had been considered good police work,” MSU criminal justice professor David Carter said. “They were taught what you look for is a person who doesn’t fit the area.”
Carter and Andra Bannister, a criminal justice professor at Wichita State University in Kansas, were hired by Lansing police to help prepare a new policy and train officers about racial profiling.
As part of that policy, Lansing officers will begin filling out 14-question forms on Feb. 12 to track all traffic stops. Officials plan to analyze that data after six months to help determine if and to what extent racial profiling takes place.
Police departments in 18 states are required to track such data under state law. Michigan is not among those states, but several area departments have begun tracking voluntarily.
“We know this is going on nationwide, not just in Lansing,” said Bannister, director of the Wichita State’s Regional Community Policing Training Institute. “This is something that’s been going on and on since the Civil Rights Movement, just under different names.”
Bannister and Carter have been working with Lansing for nearly six months. Officials held two public forums, as well as police officer focus groups, before forming the new policy.
Several officials expressed concern at the low turnout for the weekend’s community training sessions, but Lansing police Chief Mark Alley said that could be recognition that his department is taking action.
“The general public has gotten the feeling that we’re doing something about it and being open about it,” he said.
Of those who did come to the sessions, Alley said all seemed positive and were receptive to his plan.
Lansing resident Jason Amen Hetep, who works as an investigator in the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, was among those attending the session Sunday.
“I’ll wait to see the actual results before deciding if it’s beneficial,” he said. “I’ll be interested to come back in six months.”
For more information about the Lansing police’s racial profiling policy, visit the department’s Web site at http://police.cityoflansingmi.com.
