The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has introduced a new interactive dashboard regarding the Racial and Identity Profiling Act, or RIPA.
According to LASD, RIPA, also known as AB 953, requires all California law enforcement agencies to collect information on all detentions and searches and enter them in a database that allows the public to filter data by race, date, station area and type of stop .
“The bill outlines extensive policies, procedures and data collection criteria to ensure that law enforcement practices are impartial, fair and unbiased,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
RIPA also “explicitly forbids” officers from engaging in any discriminatory practices, LASD said, including discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion or any other protected characteristic.
Deputies and officers statewide are responsible for recording the information after interacting with individuals and categorizing them as a “call for service” or “deputy initiation,” the latter of which most frequently refers to a traffic stop, LASD added.
“The data collected under the RIPA statute includes many details of the detainment or consensual encounter,” authorities said. “For example, ordering a person to exit their vehicle, placing a person in handcuffs, placing a person in the back seat of their patrol vehicle, performing field sobriety tests and searching a person or their property.”
Law enforcement agencies hope the new database provides the public with transparency in addition to encouraging open discussion about crime concerns, trends and necessary corrective measures.
To view the RIPA database, click here.
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