On Tuesday, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh unveiled new guidelines that prohibit police profiling. Frosh said the guidelines will help “repair the frayed relationship between police and many in the community by making mutual respect the norm in everyday police encounters.” Maryland is the first state to adopt rules banning law enforcement profiling practices.
The guidelines divide police work into two groups: routine policing and specific investigations. The new rules prohibit police from ever using race, religion, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation as factors when conducting routine stops and operations. During investigations, police officers may use personal characteristics in searches only if they have “credible information” that those characteristics are “directly relevant” to the investigation.
“Profiling based on personal bias is not only illegal but also hurts relationships between police departments and communities,” said Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger.
The new guidelines come in the wake of several high-profile national controversies involving police and their treatment of minorities. One of these incidents, the death of Freddie Gray and the subsequent unrest in Baltimore, placed Maryland at the center of the conversation.
One of the example situations in the guidelines addresses the conditions that led to Gray’s death. Gray was arrested after running away from the police upon seeing them and died in police custody. According to the new guidelines, police cannot stop people on vague grounds of suspicious behavior.
According to Baltimore criminal lawyer Seth Okin, “this new regulation is a step in the right direction when it comes to protecting the rights of the many individuals who have been profiled and unjustly charged with crimes in Maryland.”
In addition, several civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the ACLU of Maryland, have released statements praising the new guidelines.
Toni Holness, an attorney working with the ACLU, said “The ACLU of Maryland welcomes the Attorney General’s guidance as an important step toward ending discriminatory profiling in Maryland and mending fractured relationships between law enforcement and the communities they are sworn to serve… Everyone should be treated fairly and equally, and this guidance is a step toward making that a reality of Marylanders.”
