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PRESS STATEMENT: 2024 Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board Report Reveals Critical Insights into Law Enforcement Practices

01.02.24

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Media Contact: Ronald Simms Jr., Associate Director of Communications (202) 270-0936 

LOS ANGELES, CA – Today, the Racial and Identify Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board released its highly anticipated seventh Annual Report that highlights racial biases in California’s law enforcement activities and offers recommendations to ensure communities of color are not subjected to a two-tiered criminal legal system. 

“Three years after Californians took to the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd, racial disparities continue to fester within our state’s criminal legal system,” said Dr. John Dobard, Vice President of Policy and Programs at Catalyst California and an esteemed member of the RIPA Board. “The seventh annual RIPA report not only shows the impact these disparities have on communities of color but also offers leaders across California just and equitable solutions.” 

Developed by a panel of experts and community stakeholders, the Report analyzes data from more than 4.5 million stops by 535 California law enforcement agencies from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022. Key findings include: 

  • Public schools refer Black students and students with disabilities to law enforcement at higher rates than other students.  
  • Black students on school campuses with a police presence were both stopped and handcuffed by law enforcement at higher rates than any other racial or ethnic group. 
  • Black Californians were stopped 131 percent more frequently than expected, given their relative proportion of the state’s population. 
  • Once stopped, Native American, Black, Latinx, and Multiracial Californians were searched for contraband at higher rates than their White counterparts. Native Americans had the highest search rate at 22.4 percent compared to just 12.4 percent for White Californians. 
  • Despite officers searching people of color at higher rates than White people, they were even less likely to find evidence or contraband in their searches of people of color compared to White people.  

To improve equity and safety, the report offers numerous recommendations, including the following: 

  • Repealing the part of Education Code Section 38000 authorizing school districts to operate their own police departments. 
  • Prohibiting law enforcement agencies from creating criminal databases that are not tied to information about arrests or convictions. 
  • Prioritizing care-first models that reduce interactions between community members and law enforcement, and support community-centered responses. 

“The data are clear: racial bias pervades law enforcement, and we can no longer rely on policing as our primary approach to community safety,” said Chauncee Smith, Associate Director of Reimagine Justice & Safety at Catalyst California. “Our leaders must take the findings and recommendations from this most recent report to heart and adopt policies and practices that ensure no one suffers from the devastating harms of law enforcement.” 

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Catalyst California (formerly Advancement Project California) advocates for racial justice by building power and transforming public systems. We partner with communities of color, conduct innovative research, develop policies for actionable change, and shift money and power back into our communities. 

The Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board was created for the purpose of eliminating racial and identity profiling and improving diversity and racial and identity sensitivity in law enforcement. To that end, the Board engages in a variety of work in partnership with state and local law enforcement agencies, community stakeholders, and academic researchers.