WHEREAS, in a free society, law enforcement is entrusted and expected to protect the civil rights of its citizens; and

WHEREAS, the overwhelming majority of police officers perform their duty in a professional and impartial manner free from bias; and

WHEREAS, traffic stop data collection has symbolic as well as practical value if it is clear what needs to be collected and the data is to be collected in a manner so as not to insult the individual citizen involved; and

WHEREAS, the IACP could establish a standard methodology for the profession to follow in collection and analysis and a computer program to capture the data; and

WHEREAS, the IACP can call upon criminal justice academicians to establish proper benchmarking so that the traffic stop data can be analyzed and useful; and

WHEREAS, in approaching the recruitment of new police officers, the profession should develop a testing and evaluation component for racial, gender, physical ability, religious, sexual orientation bias and action drawn from that bias; and

WHEREAS, there may be benefit to broadening recruitment efforts to younger audiences in an effort to broaden the pool of potential applicants to reflect the full breath of the community especially groups traditionally reluctant to enter the profession, i.e. Junior ROTC; and

WHEREAS, every law enforcement chief executive should review hiring eligibility requirements to ensure those requirements are free of bias and not excluding otherwise eligible candidates; and

WHEREAS, every law enforcement agency should conduct a thorough job history of all applicants during a background investigation; and

WHEREAS, police academy and in-service training should be value-based with emphasis on ethics, respect, diversity, integrity, conflict resolution, courtesy and its practical components realistically based. Moreover, training must become the responsibility of supervisors, managers and administrators, not just the academy staff. It is crucial that academies balance the number of hours provided in those areas that impact the decision to use force; and

WHEREAS, each agency should develop accountability systems which hold every level of the organization accountable for misconduct; and

WHEREAS, the IACP recognizes that establishing managerial accountability is somewhat risky and requires courage of conviction, and the long-term benefits to the department and the community outweigh any opposition. Therefore, the IACP should develop a support system for police chiefs who take strong action on accountability which is unpopular within their organizations; and

WHEREAS, when police officers violate a core value of the agency they should be held accountable; and

WHEREAS, every police agency should have a policy which clearly prohibits biased policing; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the IACP reaffirms its long standing position against biased enforcement or any other type of discriminatory practices