Equal Rights – Racial Issues and Racial Profiling (2000)

Racial Profiling by Police (2000)

We are concerned about the rising number of human rights violations perpetrated by police departments and other agencies which practice racial profiling – the process of assigning criminal status to a person based on skin color. Persons of color are more often detained by local police and highway patrols, and strip searched and targeted by customs officials. Innocent minority groups often feel like strangers in their own country. As Jews, we understand from our own history the destructiveness of being marked for disparate treatment and hostility.

At the same time, we are sympathetic to the difficulties of law enforcement in protecting the public and we are outraged at the assaults on police officers.

Women’s League for Conservative Judaism is unequivocally opposed to the practice of racial profiling as an erosion of our democratic form of government and of our civil rights. We urge our members to:

1. Publicize this concern locally and call upon their communities, elected officials and law enforcement agencies to combat this practice.
2. Encourage local and state law enforcement agencies to:
   1. Increase efforts to recruit, hire, retain and promote minority group members as police officers;
   2. Support initiatives that provide and encourage continuing education and minority sensitivity training sessions for all levels of law enforcement;
   3. Educate the community about the responsibilities, pressures and risks that law enforcement officials assume;
   4. Adopt measures to make offending officers and supervising personnel more accountable.

Racial Tensions (1990)

Securing fundamental rights for minorities reflects the fulfillment of the democratic promise of the United States. Recent racial clashes have heightened our concern to develop strategies to ease these tensions.

Despite differences in experience and attitudes, there are points of common concern and mutual interest among all people, regardless of race, color or creed. The challenge is to work together to break down prejudice and to rebuild direct personal relations.

Women’s League for Conservative Judaism urges its Sisterhood/Affiliates to:

1. Form coalitions with other racial groups to identify items on which we can work together to build bonds of understanding.
2. Continue to support enforcement of Civil Rights Laws.
3. Encourage development of educational programs to combat prejudice.