Bethel, Vermont - Vermont State Police Colonel Tom L'Esperance acknowledges that when it comes to traffic stops in the Green Mountain State, people of color are searched and ticketed more often.
"Conversations that took place roadside and the trooper reading the body language of both the operator and the passenger," explains L'Esperance.
He says it's not because of racial profiling, though.
"Some of the numbers that came up related to who gets a ticket and who doesn't, those numbers need to be looked at," says L'Esperance.
Author of the report Jack McDevitt of Northeastern University studied whether the Vermont State Police uses racial bias. He says it voluntarily reported all traffic stops for a full year—something, he says, is unheard of when it comes to issues of race and law enforcement.
"Here we have an agency that says, we don't know. Let's look," says McDevitt.
The report is good news for the VSP. It found, as a whole, troopers are not racially profiling. The real issue stems from troopers' individual bias.
"What the evidence does suggest is that we need to take a closer look at implicit bias," says Curtis Reed of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity. He says the findings are good news for Vermont State Police.
"With this particular data, we can say the state police are doing a really great job," says Reed.
"We wanted to begin this process of collecting data to build trust, especially with communities of color," adds L'Esperance.
To view the full report, click on the link below.
http://vsp.vermont.gov.
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