Analysis and Int erpret at ion of Dat a
In 2001 , the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1074 , which eventually became the Texas Racial Profiling Law . This particular law came into effect on January 1 , 2002 and required all police departments in Texas to collect traffic-related data and report this information to their local governing authority by March 1 of each year . This law remained in place until 2009 , when it was modified to include the collection and reporting of all motor vehicle-related contacts in which a citation was issued or an arrest was made . Further , the modification to the law further requires that all police officers indicate whether or not they knew the race or ethnicity of the individuals before detaining them . In addition , it became a requirement that agencies report motor vehicle-related data to their local governing authority and to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement ( TCOLE ) by March 1 of each year . The purpose in collecting and disclosing this information is to determine if police officers in any particular municipality are engaging in the practice of racially profiling minority motorists .
One of the central requirements of the law is that police departments interpret motor vehicle-related data . Even though most researchers would likely agree that it is within the confines of good practice for police departments to be accountable to the citizenry while carrying a transparent image before the community , it is in fact very difficult to determine if individual police officers are engaging in racial profiling from a review and analysis of aggregate / institutional data . In other words , it is challenging for a reputable researcher to identify specific ? individual ? racist behavior from aggregate-level ? institutional ? data on traffic or motor vehicle-related contacts .
As previously noted , in 2009 the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3389 , which modified the Racial Profiling Law by adding new requirements ; this took effect on January 1 , 2010 . The changes included , but are not limited to , the re-definition of a contact to include motor vehicle-related contacts in which a citation was issued or an arrest was made . In addition , it required police officers to indicate if they knew the race or ethnicity of the individual before detaining them . The 2009 law also required adding " Middle Eastern " to the racial and ethnic category and submitting the annual data report to TCOLE before March 1 of each year .
In 2017 , the Texas Legislators passed HB 3051 which removed the Middle Eastern data requirement while standardizing the racial and ethnic categories relevant to the individuals that came in contact with police . In addition , the Sandra Bland Act ( SB 1849 ) was passed and became law . Thus , the most significant legislative mandate ( Sandra Bland Act ) in Texas history regarding data requirements on law enforcement contacts became law and took effect on January 1 , 2018 . The Sandra Bland Act not only currently requires the extensive collection of data relevant to police motor vehicle contacts , but it also mandates for the data to be analyzed while addressing the following :
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