April 30, 2009
From TheKCGuy
I recently attended the final regular night of Citizen Police Academy, which was taught by Chief Wes Jordan. This was the tenth week of our classes, and is typically the final night. Next week, though, we're getting back together for a final night for a tour of the Johnson County communications center and jail. We're lucky to get access to those facilities, and I know everyone in the class is looking forward to it.
Chief spoke for about two hours on racial profiling (or "bias-based profiling") in Prairie Village. This is an area that the Prairie Village police department must tread lightly and be vigilant. Considering that the residents of the area that they patrol are over 90% white, according to census data, and that many motorists come from nearby areas with quite different racial ratios, the possibilities for inappropriate policing or incorrect perceptions on police operations are rampant. Chief Jordan described the thorough, voluntary measures that his department takes to make sure that not only is there no systemic problem with the way the department operates, but that no particular officer deviates from their operational procedures. The volume of data collected and analyzed is huge, and out of it came several convincing arguments indicating that the Prairie Village police department is behaving in a completely fair and just manner.
As a side effect of studying these numbers, a few particular statistics which are pretty unrelated to race were teased out which completely surprised me. I indicated that I was surprised how few times officers asked motorists for consent to search their vehicle incident to a traffic stop. In my experiences in areas around the country where I have been "lucky" enough to meet officers in their course conducting traffic stops, they seem to ask to search my car more than half of the time. In Prairie Village, they apparently almost never do it. This pointed out two things to the class. First, in order to be asked for consent to search my vehicle, apparently my behavior and appearance must be consistant with someone carrying illegal drugs, illegal guns, open containers of booze, and possibly illegal aliens. Second, the chief pointed out that the Prairie Village officers are apparently doing a good job of finding probable cause when it is present and leaving alone those drivers who have not demonstrated probable cause to search. He further indicated that he doesn't want his jurisdiction to be known as the part of town where they always search drivers' cars. That sounds like a good goal to me.
I was also struck by how few incidents involved use of force last year in Prairie Village. I have watched thousands of hours of COPS and in almost every incident use of force is one of the main ingredients. Apparently, that's not an accurate sampling of normal police behavior in Prairie Village.
While this was the last regularly scheduled episode of the Prairie Village Citizen Police Academy, there are a few more activities related to the class. Next week, we're headed for the tour of the Johnson County jail and the communications center. Then, we'll drop by a city council meeting to thank them for sponsoring the program. Finally, we're eligible to do ride-alongs with an officer. I had been threatening to do that in KCMO for years while I lived there, and now that I have a chance to do it in Prairie Village, I'm looking forward to taking advantage of it. So, if you see me riding around in a police car in the near future, don't assume that it's because I've been misbehaving, unless I'm in the back seat.
