2006 Minnesota Statutes

626.951 RACIAL PROFILING STUDY; REPORT REQUIRED.
    Subdivision 1. Racial profiling study. (a) The commissioner of public safety shall oversee
a statewide study on traffic stops of citizens to determine whether racial profiling exists. Law
enforcement agencies that decide to participate in the study shall follow the procedures set forth
by this section. Agencies that receive state money for the installation of video cameras in police
vehicles shall participate in the study.
(b) The data that must be collected as part of this study include:
(1) the location of the stop;
(2) the date and time of the stop;
(3) the age, race/ethnicity, and gender of the driver;
(4) the traffic violation or reason that led to the stop;
(5) the disposition of the stop, arrest, citation, warning, or no action;
(6) whether a search was conducted of the driver, passengers, or vehicle;
(7) if a search was conducted, the authority for the search;
(8) if a search was conducted, whether any contraband was discovered or seized and the
nature of the contraband;
(9) whether the officer knew the race/ethnicity of the driver before the stop; and
(10) the law enforcement agency's code.
(c) The time period of the study shall be 12 months, beginning on January 1, 2002, and
ending December 31, 2002.
(d) The elements listed in paragraph (b) are the minimum that a law enforcement agency
participating in the study must collect. Nothing in this section prohibits an agency from
voluntarily collecting additional data elements. If an agency collects additional data elements, the
data are classified as provided in subdivision 7.
    Subd. 2. Submission of data to commissioner. On a frequency determined by the
commissioner of public safety, each chief law enforcement officer of a law enforcement agency
participating in the study shall submit to the commissioner the data described in subdivision 1 for
each traffic stop conducted by the agency's law enforcement officers.
    Subd. 3. Method of data collection. A chief law enforcement officer may collect and submit
the data described in this section electronically, if the method of doing so is compatible with the
Department of Public Safety's computer system, or on paper forms supplied by the commissioner
of public safety.
    Subd. 4. Outside expert. The commissioners of administration and public safety shall retain
a sufficiently experienced and independent organization or individual to:
(1) design and oversee the data collection process described in this section;
(2) develop baseline measures to analyze the data collected;
(3) develop and implement a data compliance auditing process that ensures the accuracy of
data collected through, among other things, periodic spot checks; and
(4) analyze the data collected.
    Subd. 5. Other duties of commissioner. The commissioner of public safety shall:
(1) ensure that data forwarded to the commissioner under this section is entered into a
central database in a timely manner;
(2) cooperate with the outside expert to facilitate the ability of the expert to fulfill its duties
under this section, including allowing the expert sufficient access to the compiled data; and
(3) develop and distribute to law enforcement agencies participating in the study a paper
form to collect the data.
    Subd. 6. Report required. The outside expert shall analyze the data collected to determine
the degree to which, if at all, racial profiling occurs in traffic stops made by law enforcement
agencies participating in the study within the state. By December 1, 2003, the expert shall report
the results of the analysis to the chairs of the senate and house committees having jurisdiction
over criminal justice policy.
    Subd. 7. Data. If law enforcement agencies collect data for purposes of traffic stops, the
data collected, including video data, are private data on individuals or nonpublic data as defined
in section 13.02. This subdivision does not affect the classification of the same data collected
for other law enforcement purposes.
History: 1Sp2001 c 8 art 7 s 6