Two VLS Professors Offer Testimony On Racial Profiling in Vermont
July 17, 2008
When the Vermont Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights met at the State House on July 17, its members set out to determine the scope of the problem of racial profiling in Vermont—if indeed racial profiling is a problem.
But it soon became evident that this would not be an easy task.
Vermont is one of only two states in the United States (the other being Mississippi) that do not collect data correlating police stops and race, and VLS professors Michael Mello and Anna Saxman told the panel would like to see Vermont lose that dubious distinction.
Professor Mello said authorities must invoke a mandatory statewide data collection system if the state is to “get a handle” on the frequency of the problem.
“Racial profiling is most problematic at the moment of contact between police and citizens. These moments can be traffic stops, stops and frisks on the street, or myriad other points of contact,” said Professor Mello, a self- described “son of the segregated south” who teaches Constitutional Criminal Procedures.
“I know of no complete data on how many innocent Vermonters are targeted by law enforcement for traffic stops or other police/citizen encounters,” he told the panel. “We don’t know how many innocents are racially ‘profiled’ for such interactions.”
Professor Mello was followed in his testimony by the state’s deputy defender general, Anna Saxman, a 1985 VLS graduate who also teaches criminal procedure at the law school. Saxman offered anecdotal evidence of profiling in Vermont, while African émigrés, including one woman from Congo, offered their own first-hand accounts of what they believed was police harassment.
While there is no plan in place for statewide data collection, for now the panel will pay close attention to a new program in Chittenden County, where police from four agencies will soon begin collecting statistics on traffic stops to determine if race is a factor.
In addition to police stops, the panel will also be reviewing sentencing patterns within the state’s judicial system.
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