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Meeting Follow-Up and Racial Profiling Update

Good morning,

 

I hope you're all doing well, and we appreciate those who were able to join us for the meeting on Friday! For those who weren't, the materials are below! Following that, we have a write-up on the newly-released Racial Profiling Report.

 

Community Climate Plan

CAN's Race Equity Action Framework

 

Link to *DRAFT* Race Equity Action Framework

 

NOTE: The above is a draft, and may be difficult to navigate without having heard the presentation. There is still plenty of time and opportunity to make suggestions and edits. Beginning in December the creators will be holding a session once per month inviting members to help build out the info in the Race Equity Action Framework.

 

If anyone wants to help with research and/or identification of organizations that should be highlighted, then please email Jelina Tunstill.

 
Announcements
Centering Transgender Experience
 
Friday was Transgender Day of Rememberance. We had several folks speak on it, and we watched the Black Trans Leadership of Austin video below. The work of equity requires us to center those most negatively impacted by inequity, and in order to be true anti-racists we must work from an intersectional lens. LBTQIA+ people of color, particularly Black trans women, continue to be murdered and erased by our systems.
 
As a White, cisgendered straight man, I am a participant in and beneficiary of this compounding violence. In my work and my life, operating without a critical lens and relationships to hold me accountable means I am furthering and recreating this harm. Wanting and believing we do better is not enough, and especially as White folks, building a light self-critique without action, without working to undo what has been done to us, only serves to perpetuate and strengthen our systems of inequity.
Racial Profiling Continues and Gets Worse
As you may have seen in the news, last Monday, the Office of Police Oversight, in partnership with the Equity and Innovation Offices, relased the 2019 Analysis of APD Racial Profiling Data. This report is a follow-up and update to the 2018 Analysis.
 
In short, the Austin Police Department continues to racially profile Black and LatinX drivers. This trend has been continuing and growing worse over the last 5 years. The Black, voting-age population makes up about 8% of Austin, and yet Black drivers are 14% of all stops, and a quarter, 25%, of all searches and arrests. White drivers, meanwhile, remain underrepresented in stops, and are searched and arrested less frequently.
 
As you dig into this data, the disparity is even more clear. When looking at outcomes from stops, Black and LatinX drivers more frequently receive tickets, and are arrested more often. 10% of all stops for Black drivers result in arrest, and 7% for LatinX drivers. Over 60% of stops for White drivers result in no punishment.
 
 
Black drivers are also targeted for searches far more often than any other race of driver. In examining this data, it's important to examine the decision made by an officer to perform a search. There are some cases in which an officer is required to perform a search, such as if the vehicle will be towed or driver is being arrested. These are "low discretion" searches. There are far more cases where the officer has discretion to decide whether to perform a search, or "high discretion" searches.
 
Nearly 60% of searches performed on Black drivers resulted becauses officers decided to search. For every other race of driver, the far majority of searches were cases where the officer had no choice. This was true in spite of similar "hit rates" across all races of driver. This means Black drivers are subjected to greater surveillance and suspicion on the basis of their race alone, and to no end but to terrorize.
 
There are far more findings in the full report, and I would encourage everyone to take the time and read through it. The fundamental truth is that APD continues to racially profile drivers, and their attempts to correct for it have not worked, and appear to have even made things worse.
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