Anti-racism protestors face a line of police in riot gear on Franklin Street in Portland early on June 2. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Maine legislators pressed the state’s top two law enforcement officials on Wednesday to collect more data about racial disparities in policing.
The unusual hearing was the first since the COVID-19 pandemic cut short the legislative session and comes amid nationwide calls for police reforms fueled by outrage about systemic racism and brutality. Maine Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck and Attorney General Aaron Frey spent hours answering questions before the special joint committee meeting of lawmakers who oversee criminal justice, public safety and the judiciary.
But it is not clear what the next steps for the administration or the Legislature will be.
Available data shows that Black people in Maine are arrested at a much higher rate than others. But the state does not have comprehensive information about race and the criminal justice system that could help leaders understand and address disparities.
Both Frey and Sauschuck acknowledged that systematic racism impacts policing in Maine, and they said more data would be useful in addressing that problem. Though Frey said directly that he would support the collection of basic data like race and gender, Sauschuck repeated arguments about the cost of making changes to the disparate records management systems used by law enforcement agencies.
“That’s not to say it doesn’t happen in other states, but there’s going to be a price tag in order to do that,” Sauschuck said. “Maybe that’s OK.”
“Are you ready to support mandatory data collection on gender and race as a starting point?” Sen. Shenna Bellows, D-Manchester, asked the attorney general at another point in the hearing.
“Yes, I am prepared to support that and do what I can to be a part of that,” Frey answered.
Frey presented a report about tracking racial disparities in traffic stops, arrests and use of force. The report offered options on how the state could collect more information about traffic stops conducted statewide by police in an effort to identify and root out racial profiling tactics. The report was the result of legislation filed by Rep. Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop, whose original bill sought mandatory, statewide collection of various demographic data points about every driver pulled over by officers.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine was among the supporters of Hickman’s bill last year.
“We are cautiously optimistic that the attorney general has committed to better data collection after recognizing that our legal system is suffused with systemic racism that has very real – and all too often deadly – consequences for Black people and other people of color,” Meagan Sway, the organization’s policy council, said Wednesday evening. “After nearly a decade discussing whether Maine police should collect this data, we are past the time of promises and must move into action. The Maine people have a right to this information and there is no more room for delay.”
Millions of people across the nation have marched in the streets in response to police killings of Black people in recent years, including the videotaped killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day in Minneapolis. Floyd was killed by a white police officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck as he lay on the ground and other officers watched.
Some are calling for departments to be abolished, disbanded or defunded, with resources previously earmarked for police to be redistributed to social service departments, education and public housing.
The Wednesday hearing covered a wide range of topics on policing, from training requirements to use of force to decertification of law enforcement officers.
On Tuesday, the Maine Criminal Justice Academy Board of Trustees announced that law enforcement agencies in Maine must ban the use of chokeholds except when deadly force is justified. Police departments also must adopt policies requiring officers to intervene if a fellow officer uses excessive force, according to the new mandatory policy guidelines.
Currently, most large police departments in Maine do not explicitly ban chokeholds and only two require officers to intervene when excessive force is being used.
“How do you think these new reforms get at eliminating the racial disparities in the system?” Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, asked the public safety commissioner. “I’m talking really specifically about systemic, institutionalized racism in policing in the state of Maine.”
Sauschuck said restricting the use of force can protect people of color, who are disproportionately the target of those actions by law enforcement officers.
“If you make these changes, in fact you make everybody safer, but you would automatically make people of color safer,” Sauschuck said.
Frey said the Office of the Attorney General has long had an informal process to review complaints about racial profiling by law enforcement officers, and he is now formalizing that process. Since 1993, the office has received only one complaint, which was not substantiated. But Frey said he has heard from stakeholders and community leaders about instances of racial profiling, even though those reports are not coming into his office.
Hickman said people need to believe that their reports will be taken seriously, and he said Frey needs to do robust outreach to build trust in affected communities.
“It’s going to be hard to file a complaint in a system where you’re not sure if the complaint itself will make you a target of more aggressive policing in the future because your name is attached to the complaint,” he said.
Rep. Thom Harnett, D-Gardiner, asked the public safety commissioner about the racial disparity in Maine’s incarcerated population and what policies could be implemented to change those numbers. Sauschuck recalled the last legislative session, when a number of proposals for criminal justice reform were on the table.
“I think you have the opportunity to impact that answer personally and professionally, as do I,” Sauschuck said.
“As we all do and must,” Harnett replied.
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