SB24 Alabama 2016 1st Special Session Session

Summary

Primary Sponsor

Rodger SmithermanSenator

Democrat

Session

First Special Session 2016

Title

Traffic stops, racial profiling by law enforcement officers, prohibited, written policies, forms for statistics, and reports to Attorney General required, provision for complaints

Summary

SB24 would ban racial profiling in traffic stops and require police departments to adopt anti-profiling policies, collect stop statistics, handle complaints, and report findings to the Attorney General.

What This Bill Does

It defines racial profiling as detaining a motorist solely based on race or ethnicity and prohibits such practices by police. It requires municipal police departments and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to adopt written anti-profiling policies, implement standardized forms to record traffic-stop data, and collect information on stops (including driver and officer observations, stop reasons, and outcomes). It creates a complaint process, requires reporting of data and complaints to the Attorney General, and allows the AG to withhold funds for noncompliance, with annual and long‑term reporting to the Governor and Legislature.

Who It Affects

• Law enforcement agencies (municipal police departments and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency) must adopt policies, collect data, handle complaints, and report to the Attorney General; noncompliance can trigger funding penalties.
• Drivers and the general public benefit from anti-profiling protections, increased transparency of traffic stops, and a formal complaint mechanism.

Key Provisions

• Defines racial profiling as detention, interdiction, or other disparate treatment of a motorist solely based on race or ethnicity and prohibits such stops.
• Requires by January 1 after the act’s effective date that municipal police departments and ALEA adopt written policies prohibiting stops motivated by race or other protected characteristics and develop standardized data-collection forms.
• Requires collection of stop data including number of stops, observed driver characteristics (race, color, ethnicity, gender, age) based on officer observation, stop reason, and whether a warning, citation, arrest, or search occurred; officer and observed characteristics must be recorded adjacent to each other.
• Mandates reporting to the Attorney General of all complaints and the disposition of those complaints; data collected in good faith cannot be used as the basis for civil action against officers.
• Authorizes the Attorney General to withhold funds from agencies for noncompliance until proper training is completed; requires annual/biannual summary reports to the Attorney General.
• The Attorney General must review the prevalence and disposition of stops and complaints and report findings and recommendations to the Governor and Legislature by the specified legislative timeline.
• The act includes forms to be developed for recording stop information and for filing complaints, to be available in both printed and electronic formats.
• Section 4 notes the bill’s local-funding impact is under $50,000 per year, so it is exempt from certain local-funding approval requirements.
• The act becomes effective on the first day of the third month after passage and governor approval.

AI-generated summary using openai/gpt-5-nano on Feb 25, 2026. May contain errors — refer to the official bill text for accuracy.

Subjects

Motor Vehicles