IMPD unveils technology to track traffic stop demographics

IMPD to track demographic data for traffic stops

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The technology to track the demographics of everyone pulled over by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department was approved to be taught to officers by the General Orders Board.

If you’re pulled over on the streets of Indianapolis, the pilot program is aimed to find out if that traffic stop was racial profiling.

“This is not about us making more work for the officers. This is not that we believe the officers are doing anything wrong,” said IMPD Deputy Chief Kevin Wethington.

The program was created by IMPD, “It’s easy to use. It’s drop downs. No fill in the blanks,” Wethington said.

Things like sex, race, how long the stop lasted, why the stop was started, was the person searched, was the car searched, and why was the car searched are all categories officers will have to enter before submitting the form.

If done efficiently, IMPD said it could take 20-30 seconds.

“I don’t know that the line officers are going to be excited about a new mandate to do another step in traffic stops, but I believe the officers will embrace the why behind this,” Wethington said.

The why is to get a detailed picture of who they’re stopping, where, and why, even if that person doesn’t get a ticket or get arrested.

“This will actually answer those questions for the first time,” Wethington said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana fully supports the implementation of the program because of what the end data could show. It could lead to major changes in how policing is done in Indianapolis.

Is there any concern that there might actually be some sort of profiling, or racial profiling, that’s actively going on, but is just not known because there is no data?

“Yes. At the ACLU we have just seen example after example nation wide of police departments, even those who have policies in place and have good intent, engaging in racial profiling,” said Chris Daley, executive director of the ACLU of Indiana.

Wethington does not have those concerns about what the data will show.

“We stop criminals. We stop traffic offenders. We stop people that need to be stopped,” Wethington said.

IMPD told I-Team 8, once this program is up and running, they’ll have to pair up with a research team that will sift through all of this data to determine if there is any racial profiling going.