BRATTLEBORO — The release of the recent report, “Racial Profiling in Vermont: Briefings Before the Vermont Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights,” gives Windham County residents an opportunity to create new behavioral norms for community members and local law enforcement.
In June and July 2008, the Vermont Advisory Committee invited law enforcement representatives, government officials, scholars, advocacy-group representatives, community representatives, and the public to participate in the briefings.
The committee learned that there remains a strong perception, particularly among persons of color, that actual or perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin is used as the basis for law enforcement decision-making for traffic and pedestrian stops.
Establishing new behavioral norms requires suspending entrenched mindsets long enough for both sides to see common values and the need to adopt promising or best practices in the field of police-community relations.
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For example, in Brattleboro, more than 80 percent of the minority households participating in a 2004 survey by the Alana Community Organization (now known as Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity) believed racial profiling by the Brattleboro Police Department was a problem, with 54.2 percent citing it as a “serious problem.” Nearly one in five minority households participated in the survey.
How do we create new norms when 72 percent of those who believed a Brattleboro police officer's conduct did not meet their expectations chose not to file a formal complaint with the police department? Nearly 40 percent of those who did not file believed their complaint would not be taken seriously or that they would become the target of police retaliation.
This mindset is understandable given that police misconduct is examined through an internal-affairs process shielded entirely from the public view. No doubt the absence of transparency breeds suspicion and the feeling that one's concerns are not seriously considered.
The newly resuscitated Brattleboro Citizen-Police Communications Committee needs unfettered access to the internal affairs process if it is to reduce, if not eliminate over time, the perception among residents of color that the police are indifferent and unfair.
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The Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity recommends Brattleboro takes it cue from state law enforcement.
As it stands, the state legislature provides the state's largest law enforcement agency, the Vermont State Police, with a more effective mechanism to promote transparency and build confidence with those they serve: the State Police Advisory Commission (spac). By statute, the seven-member commission must have one retired state police officer and one lawyer, with the remaining members drawn from the general public.
State law mandates that the spac provide advice and counsel to the commissioner for the Department of Public Safety in carrying out his or her responsibilities for the management, supervision, and control of the Vermont State Police.
By law, the spac must ensure that state police officers be subject to fair and known practices. In addition, it advises the commissioner with respect to and review rules concerning promotion, grievances, transfers, internal investigations, and discipline.
Through internal investigation, the commission advises and assists the commissioner in developing and making known routine procedures to ensure that allegations of misconduct by state police officers are investigated fully and fairly, and to ensure that appropriate action is taken with respect to such allegations.
Two important provisions in the law contribute to the transparency necessary to build community confidence.
First, whereas records of the office of internal investigation are confidential, the spac has full and free access to such records. And second, the spac “shall, in its discretion, be entitled to report to such authorities as it may deem appropriate, or to the public, or to both, to ensure that proper action is taken in each case.”
During the racial profiling briefings, members of the Vermont Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights learned that the leadership of many of Vermont's law enforcement agencies is committed to addressing this issue head-on.
The Vermont Partnership shares the Vermont Advisory Committee's commitment to the racial profiling dialogue moving “past perception, rhetoric, and accusation to a comprehensive approach that includes law enforcement and the community working together to build trust.”
The Town of Brattleboro could well demonstrate its commitment to these issues by reauthorizing the Citizen-Police Communications Committee to mirror that of the State Police Advisory Commission.
Doing so would provide a meaningful gesture toward building trust, fairness, and transparency on behalf of all community members - regardless of race or ethnicity.