Features

SAN FRANCISCO — More and more police departments are trying to learn whether officers target minorities for traffic stops. The trouble is they’re cops, not computer whizzes, and may not know how best to gather and analyze their findings. 

That fact has software and data management companies eyeing a market that didn’t exist two years ago. 

“It’s just a perfect fit for what we’re providing to law enforcement agencies,” says Tom Hoag, president and CEO of Scantron Corp., which helps a dozen agencies compile traffic stop data. “This is sort of a recent phenomenon. We had a couple of customers a year ago and now there’s movement on this.” 

Two years ago, not a single department tracked traffic stop data by race. Now, about 400 of the nation’s 19,000 law enforcement agencies do. The federal government is helping create the market — the Justice Department has encouraged police to collect data that might prove or refute anecdotal accusations of profiling. 

Some agencies, like San Diego police and North Carolina state troopers, use sophisticated computer databases to log traffic stops. Police in Montgomery County, Md. use hand-held devices. Smaller departments may scribble on paper forms that clerical staff must enter into a computer. 

Companies like Scantron, best known for its fill-in-the-bubble grade school tests, hope to capitalize on the increasing demand. 

Scantron reported $100 million in sales last year and Hoag said the company might make $250,000 off traffic data projects. So while racial profiling may be a niche market, it’s also low risk because race-tracking programs require only small tweaks to existing technologies. 

Tustin, Calif.-based Scantron, for example, simply reprograms a scanner to read a customized form. The company sold its first racial profiling package to Hayward, Calif police. Since that Oct. 1999 deal, Scantron added cities like Oakland, Kansas City and St. Louis County, Mo. 

The cost is not a budget buster. Oakland spent $25,000 on two scanners and 80,000 forms with 11 blank spaces — ranging from race to whether police conducted a search – that an officer completes after traffic stops. 

Now, competitors are lining up. 

“There’s going to be a need in the vast majority of departments for this kind of technology,” predicts David Grip of the Mobile Government division of Aether Systems, a wireless information company that reported $6.3 million in sales last year. Six months ago, his company began to develop racial profiling software after it became clear that data collection “is not simply confined to a department here or there.” 

The arrival of private enterprise into the field encourages Amy Farrell, a researcher at Northeastern University who will use Scantron to help Rhode Island analyze its traffic stop data. 

New Technologies may make data collection easier, she says, but cautions that companies cannot help decide what data should be collected as well as academic experts. 

“There is some danger in jurisdictions just working with a company,” Farrell says. “The market doesn’t always drive the best research.” 

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On The Net: 

http://www.scantron.com 

http://www.cardiff.com 

http://www.cerulean.com