Reducing Ethnic Profiling in the European Union - Open Society ...

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Civilian oversight can and should do more to identify and address ethnic profilingas a form of indirect discrimination. To do so, complaints bodies must be empoweredto scrutinize institutional policies and practices that underlie or permit ethnic profiling.Despite the challenges mentioned here, a number of noteworthy practices have emergedin Europe demonstrating how complaints bodies can address systemic discrimination,including ethnic profiling, despite limited or partial data on ethnicity and other groundsfor discrimination, as can be seen in the following case study on Belgium’s “Comité P”and the French National Commission on Police Ethics.BELGIUMComité PComité P is Belgium's independent police oversight mechanism created in 1994 toincrease police accountability and enhance parliamentary oversight. It has a dualmandate to examine the protection of constitutional rights and efficient servicedelivery by the police. Comité P has five members appointed by the House of Representativesfor five-year terms that may be renewed once.Comité P can receive and investigate individual complaints and can also act on itsown initiative. Investigations are carried out by a special investigative service withextensive powers, including direct investigation of criminal acts. The committee canalso provide assistance to victims, carry out awareness-raising activities, initiateand participate in court proceedings, and research structural problems. Comité Pemphasizes its role in identifying problems in the functioning of police services andrecommending solutions to parliament and government.Comité P has conducted several studies related to ethnic profiling. In 2005, itanalyzed complaints received the previous year, looking for patterns of racismand discrimination. The analysis looked at the context (e.g. identity checks, trafficstops, other infractions), the type of act (racist speech, improper behavior or attitude,discrimination/bias in an intervention), and the police service involved. 116 Theanalysis relied on database coding of complaints involving racism or discrimination.It identified personal characteristics of complainants such as sex and linguisticregime (French or Flemish), but did not identify ethnicity as this information wasnot collected and the researchers did not want to use foreign names as a proxy forethnic origin. The research found 70 complaints registered for racism or discriminationin 2004. A similar study examined years 2000 to 2003 and did use thecomplainant’s name or the content of the complaint to determine foreign nationality.60 OVERSIGHT BODIES AND COMPLAINTS MECHANISMS
FRANCENational Commission on Police EthicsThe National Commission on Police Ethics (CNDS) is an independent administrativeauthority created in 2000 to ensure compliance with ethics rules by French lawenforcement officers. Individuals can present complaints to the commission viaa member of the National Assembly, Senate, the Ombudsman’s office, the HighAuthority against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE), the Children’s Defender,or the General Supervisor of Places of Detention and Deprivation of Liberty. TheCNDS cannot independently initiate investigations.The CNDS publishes annual reports that include a different thematic focus eachyear. In 2004, the annual report analyzed complaints to determine whether there wasa pattern and practice of discrimination over the prior four-year period. The studyreviewed 36 discrimination cases and 78 cases of violations of police ethics. Thestudy presented a detailed picture of police discrimination, with in-depth analysisof the type of police officials involved, victims, and possible causes of the problem.The report noted that the range of victims is diverse in terms of age, gender, andethnic origin, but that of the primary group of victims were youth aged 18 to 35 ofNorth African origin who encounter police in the suburbs of Paris. According to theCNDS, “the reasons for the police action are often the same: preventive identitychecks, intended to mark the presence of the security forces in the neighborhood,sometimes on the occasion of gatherings of young people or disturbing the peaceat night.” 117 The officers involved tended to be young and inexperienced, and oftenlacked adequate training or supervision. The report flagged the widespread useof stereotypes by officers, and noted that certain police officers associate “visiblepopulations” (ethnic minorities) with criminality and sensitive neighborhoods, andtreat all such persons as members of a high risk group rather than on the basis oftheir actions as individuals. 118 The recommendations set out a range of measuresto address institutional discrimination and racism, including training, supervision,organization, internal guidelines and instruction, and respect for legal regulations.Former CNDS staff have noted dramatic increases in the number of complaints (a50 percent increase from 2008 to 2009) and continue to confront slow and hostileresponses to their findings from the Ministry of the Interior and police unions. In2011, the CNDS was incorporated into a new national office for the defense of rights(Defendeur des Droits).REDUCING ETHNIC PROFILING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION 61
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OPEN SOCIETY JUSTICE INITIATIVERedu
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described in this report. The case
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List of Case StudiesThe case studie
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Page 16 and 17: The United Nations, the Council of
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Page 41 and 42: FRANCEObligation of Non-Discriminat
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Page 100 and 101: NORTHERN IRELANDBeyond the Margins:
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This is not to say that stop forms
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• Recording of self-defined ethni
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UNITED KINGDOM“Know Your Rights
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Prior to the ride-alongs, many Hung
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General principles of good practice
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UNITED KINGDOMMonitoring the Qualit
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GREECEProhibition of Racist Languag
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This handbook recommends that law e
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Where possible, training should inc
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SWEDENPolice and Youth Sharing Expe
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Training in the Counter-radicalizat
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VIII. Changing Institutional Cultur
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and Wales have used the package. Mo
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NORTHERN IRELANDCreating a More Bal
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Moroccan man. Another minority offi
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other characteristics or values. Co
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Take steps to ensure that all parts
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Law enforcement agencies must be se
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A large number of Polish migrants h
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variety of individuals with “life
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UNITED KINGDOMCommunity Stop and Se
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their needs, and problems, and hear
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to travel as far as Liverpool to ac
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The strategy includes multiple init
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The website provides an interactive
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Appendix A:Sample Stop Forms171
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REDUCING ETHNIC PROFILING IN THE EU
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Fuenlabrada, Spain Stop FormREDUCIN
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West Yorkshire Police Stop ReceiptR
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Covenant rights that are especially
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• Necessity: The use of ethnic pr
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The clear risk of arbitrariness in
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The Committee considers that identi
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adopted on June 29, 2007, CRI/Counc
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European Union Fundamental Rights A
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Notes1. Rebekah Delsol, Open Societ
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13. A report of MI5’s behavioral
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38. From the email text sent by Tem
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57. R. Davis and P. Mateu-Gelabert,
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88. Gillan and Quinton v. United Ki
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Ireland). Of the total number of co
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139. For example, European Commissi
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165. Open Society Justice Initiativ
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197. These can be found at: http://
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230. More information can be found
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266. To undertake this kind of anal
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279. In Rosalind Williams, Spanish
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Ethnic profiling by police in Europ
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