In 1999, the legislature, led by the late Sen. Alvin Penn of Bridgeport, passed landmark legislation requiring police record the race of motorists in traffic stops.
The law, which directs the African-American Affairs Commission to analyze the data to determine if racial profiling exists, has been largely ignored for years.
Now lawmakers are pondering ways to add teeth to the law. The Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing today on a bill that would require police departments to use standardized forms to record data from every motor vehicle stop. Officers would also be required to provide a copy of the completed form to the driver who was stopped.
That data would be analyzed by the state Office of Policy and Management as well as the Criminal Justice Information System Governing Board, instead of the African-American Affairs Commission, says it never received any money from the state to do the job.
The proposed changes to the law were praised by civil rights groups. Racial profiling is a form of institutional racism, wrote Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut state conference of NAACP branches.