The Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board began its work in July 2016 as part of the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015 (AB 953) with a momentous purpose: to eliminate racial and identity profiling and improve racial and identity sensitivity in law enforcement.1 In order to achieve these goals, the RIPA Board was charged with several responsibilities including publishing an annual report on the past and current status of racial and identity profiling with policy recommendations for eliminating it. This is the first report of the RIPA Board, and similarly represents California’s first ever statewide report on racial and identity profiling in law enforcement.
In addition to forming the RIPA Board, the Racial and Identity Profiling Act also requires that in the coming years the majority of California’s law enforcement agencies collect information on all “stops” – defined as any detention or search (including consensual searches) – and report this information to the California Department of Justice (Department). Starting in January 2020, the RIPA Board’s annual report will contain analyses of the “stop” data reported to the Department, beginning with California’s largest law enforcement agencies that will start collecting this data in July 2018 and report it to the Department by April 2019
