A bill proposed by U.S. Sen. George Voinovich would take steps to eliminate racial profiling by law enforcement but faces rival legislation.
Both the bill proposed by Voinovich, R-Ohio, and a racial-profiling bill proposed by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., were introduced to the Senate in February and are in the Judiciary Committee.
Voinovich's bill is co-sponsored by Sen. John Breaux, D-La., while Feingold's bill is co-sponsored by a number of prominent Democrats, including presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.; Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.
Both bills include provisions for training local officers and withholding funding if problems arise, though there are differences. Voinovich's bill includes a provision on monitoring the administrative process of racial complaints that the Feingold bill does not.
Racial profiling was an issue Voinovich dealt with while governor of Ohio, spokeswoman Marcy Ridgeway said.
You can't just ban it legislatively - you have to change the hearts and the minds of people; change the way that people think
she said.
Feingold's bill, however, includes a provision for data collection on the subjects of stoppages by officers that Voinovich's bill does not have. It also allows complaints to be heard in federal court instead of a department investigating itself.
The bills define racial profiling differently. The Voinovich bill defines it as any police initiated action that relies on the race ethnicity or national origin rather than the behavior of an individual or information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been identified as being
or having been
engaged in criminal activity.
The Feingold bill, using the Department of Justice's definition, defines racial profiling as the practice of a law enforcement agent relying
to any degree
on race
ethnicity
religion
or national origin in selecting which individuals to subject to routine or spontaneous investigatory activities...
The Voinovich bill has garnered much support in Ohio, with Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and George Forbes, president of the Cleveland National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, endorsing the bill. Feingold's bill, however, has the support of the national NAACP.
The Feingold bill is more comprehensive in dealing with racial profiling, with the data collection provision being crucial, said Hillary Shelton, director of the Washington, D.C., branch of the NAACP.
Most people aren't victimized by the FBI
but by the local police department
