As a provision of Gov. Jim Doyle's proposed budget, law enforcement officials may be required to collect data regarding the races of motorists they pull over in an attempt to curb racial profiling.
Law enforcement personnel would also be required ""to attend cultural sensitivity training in order to prevent racial profiling or stereotyping,"" according to the budget document.
""I think it's a good idea. The only way that you can find out whether things are fair or not is to measure it,"" UW-Madison professor of sociology Pamela Oliver said.
According to Oliver, this measure would reveal whether there is a disparity in traffic stops, but ""what caused that difference is what you have to look into.""
She said some racial disparities are justified because there are in fact racial differences in driving behavior, such as white people driving drunk more often. Racial differences in discretionary traffic stops would give evidence of unjust racial stereotyping.
""There's almost always something you can stop someone for if you want to,"" Oliver said.
The City of Madison is currently the only agency in the state that collects racial data, and its reports show a disparity in traffic stops. According to Oliver, there is not currently information to compare the area's racial profiling with that of other cities and states.
The 2009-'11 budget would also allocate $500,000 to the governor's Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System.
Doyle created this commission in 2008, which found that blacks represented only 6 percent of the state's population but nearly half of Wisconsin's prison population.
