We should prevent racial profiling

Compared with New Jersey -- where police officers use race as a basis to stop and search drivers -- racial profiling isn't a big bone of contention between this state's law enforcement agencies and their minority constituents.

Still, it happens. African Americans know that the acronym DWB stands for "driving while black." It occurs, for instance, when a black man is waylaid for no good reason in an exclusively white and often affluent neighborhood. There's no corollary in the majority community, no driving while white.

To prevent this unacceptable practice from escalating here, and compounding the discrimination that many minorities already experience in the justice system, Washington should learn from what's transpired recently on the other coast. After denying for some years that New Jersey state troopers engaged in racial profiling, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman found out that some do.

Even worse for Whitman's higher political aspirations, she has had to agree that the state will settle out of court with the U.S. Justice Department. That's in lieu of New Jersey being sued under a provision of the 1994 Crime Bill that authorized the federal government to bring charges against police agencies that "engage in patterns of misconduct."

It's likely the state will be monitored by an outside agency and, as is certainly warranted, subjected to stricter requirements on how troopers conduct stops and searches.

Non-whites are becoming much more prevalent in Washington state; between 1980 and 1996, the percentage of racial and ethnic minorities nearly doubled. This trend highlights the possibility of greater friction in the future with some members of law enforcement. It behooves police chiefs, sheriffs and the state patrol to improve the behavior and all officers who aren't colorblind in carrying out their very public duties.

Department heads should strongly consider voluntarily adopting the requirements being so publicly forced on New Jersey. These include recording the race of each person stopped by the officer, either driving or walking, to obtain an accurate account of who's being stopped and why. Also worth mulling over is a policy mandating that officers radio in the reason for making a stop before they pull someone over.

Next month the King County Defender Association is expected to ask Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper to have his officers keep records on the race of people they stop. Such a policy was recently adopted by legislators in North Carolina.

The association is embarking on an 18-month project, funded by the Justice Department, to curb racial disparity in the county's judicial system. It will focus on representing clients, educating those clients' attorneys and making those in the broader system of justice aware of the causes and effects of racial disproportionality.

We prefer to think that King County has been singled out for this grant not because the problem is severe -- it's not yet -- but because of recognition that the players, from police to prosecutors to judges, are willing to tackle it.