The Albany Police Department does not have the time or resources to be tracking the race of every person they pull over on traffic stops. Neither does the Monroe Police Department, or Green County Sheriff's Department, for that matter.
The Legislature's budget committee has no business deciding that law enforcement agencies should be collecting this information. There's no immediate budgetary impact, certainly not in addressing the state's multi-billion-dollar shortfall.
But yet the Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday voted to require every law enforcement department in the state to begin to track the race of people they pull over starting in 2011. The edict still must be approved by the Legislature.
The data collection is part of an attempt to determine the extent of racial profiling in Wisconsin. The vote Tuesday was in response to another recent decision by the committee - to allow police to stop people for not wearing seat belts. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin had urged lawmakers to "strengthen the proposed budget's racial profiling section" out of concern the seat belt provision would increase the frequency of profiling.
Gov. Jim Doyle had asked the Legislature to require reporting from the state's 11 most populated counties. The ACLU asked only that there be a sunset on the seat belt provision pending evaluation of the profiling data from those 11 counties.
The 12 Democrats on the budget committee all voted to extend the data collection statewide. The four Republicans were opposed to that.
There's no reason for profiling data to be collected in Green and Lafayette counties, and other more rural portions of the state. "This is not a problem in much of Wisconsin," Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, said.
It would be just one more state mandate that does nothing to enhance public safety and further stretches local law enforcement resources. Hopefully, there are enough Democratic lawmakers who agree, and reverse the committee's decision.
The Legislature's budget committee has no business deciding that law enforcement agencies should be collecting this information. There's no immediate budgetary impact, certainly not in addressing the state's multi-billion-dollar shortfall.
But yet the Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday voted to require every law enforcement department in the state to begin to track the race of people they pull over starting in 2011. The edict still must be approved by the Legislature.
The data collection is part of an attempt to determine the extent of racial profiling in Wisconsin. The vote Tuesday was in response to another recent decision by the committee - to allow police to stop people for not wearing seat belts. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin had urged lawmakers to "strengthen the proposed budget's racial profiling section" out of concern the seat belt provision would increase the frequency of profiling.
Gov. Jim Doyle had asked the Legislature to require reporting from the state's 11 most populated counties. The ACLU asked only that there be a sunset on the seat belt provision pending evaluation of the profiling data from those 11 counties.
The 12 Democrats on the budget committee all voted to extend the data collection statewide. The four Republicans were opposed to that.
There's no reason for profiling data to be collected in Green and Lafayette counties, and other more rural portions of the state. "This is not a problem in much of Wisconsin," Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, said.
It would be just one more state mandate that does nothing to enhance public safety and further stretches local law enforcement resources. Hopefully, there are enough Democratic lawmakers who agree, and reverse the committee's decision.
