The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“INTRODUCTION OF END RACIAL PROFILING ACT OF 2017” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E316-E317 on March 10, 2017.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
INTRODUCTION OF END RACIAL PROFILING ACT OF 2017
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HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.
of michigan
in the house of representatives
Friday, March 10, 2017
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the End Racial Profiling Act of 2017, along with additional cosponsors. This legislation represents a comprehensive federal commitment to healing the rift caused by racial, ethnic and religious profiling and restoring public confidence in the criminal justice system at-large. This legislation is designed to enforce the constitutional right to equal protection of the laws by changing the policies and procedures underlying the practice of discriminatory profiling.
Recent events in the wake of President Trump's Executive Orders on Immigration demonstrate that racial, ethnic and religious profiling remain dangerous and divisive issues in our communities. Airport detentions of Muslims and immigration raids targeted at the Latino community strike at the very foundation of our democracy. Though people across our nation are protesting in response to these actions, there is no substitute for comprehensive federal anti-profiling legislation.
This legislation can be traced back to the data collection efforts of the late 1990's that were designed to determine whether racial profiling was a fact versus an urban legend. Based upon the work around that legislation, by September 11, 2001, there was significant empirical evidence and wide agreement among Americans, including President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft, that racial profiling was a tragic fact of life in the minority community and that the Federal government should take action to end the practice. Moreover, many in the law enforcement community have acknowledged that singling out people for heightened scrutiny based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin had eroded the trust in law enforcement necessary to appropriately serve and protect our communities.
Despite the fact that the majority of law enforcement officers perform their duties professionally and without bias, and we value their service highly, the specter of discriminatory profiling has contaminated the relationship between the police and minority communities to such a degree that Federal action is justified to begin addressing the issue.
The End Racial Profiling Act is designed to eliminate the well documented problem of racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and national origin profiling. First, the bill provides a prohibition on racial profiling, enforceable by declaratory or injunctive relief. Second, the bill mandates that training on racial profiling issues as part of Federal law enforcement training, the collection of data on all routine or spontaneous investigatory activities that is to be submitted through a standardized form to the Department of Justice. Third, the Justice Department is authorized to provide grants for the development and implementation of best policing practices, such as early warning systems, technology integration, and other management protocols that discourage profiling. Finally, the Attorney General is required to provide periodic reports to assess the nature of any ongoing discriminatory profiling practices.
In recent years the deaths of Walter L. Scott, arising from a traffic stop, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Antonio Zambrano-Montes, all at the hands of police officers, have highlighted the link between the issues of race and reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct. These individuals were denied the basic respect and equal treatment that is the right of every American. Ultimately, these men are tragic examples of the risk of being victimized by a perception of criminality simply because of their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. These dangerous misperceptions of criminality helped to cultivate an environment in which the United States government considers discriminatory and unconstitutional executive orders a reasonable use of executive power.
Decades ago, the passage of sweeping civil rights legislation made clear that race, religion and ethnicity should not affect the treatment of individual Americans under the law. The practice of using race or other characteristics as a proxy for criminality in law enforcement undermines the progress we have made toward achieving equality under the law. Please join me in supporting this legislation.
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