[JURIST] Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh announced [press release] plans Tuesday to issue new guidelines significantly limiting the use of racial profiling in policing as an effort to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Frosh stated that police have a very dangerous job, but he hopes the adoption of these guidelines will help restore a sense of community between the officers and community:

Police do a dangerous, difficult job, and they do it well … [b]ut experience shows us that improper profiling by police does terrible damage. It discourage cooperation by law-abiding citizens, it generates bogus leads that turn attention away from bona fide criminal conduct, and it erodes community trust.

The guidelines break down two categories: routine police work and investigation. Profiling based on race, religion, and sexual orientation will never be allowed in routine work and only in investigations where the police “have credible evidence that those characteristics are directly relevant to the investigation” may they be taken into consideration.

The use of racial profiling by law enforcement officials has been an ongoing topic of discussion in the US. In April the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [ official website] ruled [opinion PDF] that the Maricopa County Sherrif’s Office [official website] and, specifically, Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, engaged in practices of racial profiling in conducting traffic stops [JURIST report]. Last year the UN Committee Against Torture [official website] urged the US [report, PDF] to open investigations [JURIST report] into all cases of police brutality and excessive use of force by police officers. The committee expressed concern over the use of force against certain people and the use of “racial profiling by police and immigration offices,” among other tactics used by law enforcement. In 2013 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] accused [press release] governmental surveillance centers of invasion of privacy and reliance on racial and religious profiling in their Suspicious Activity Reports urging [letter, PDF] the centers to adopt stricter standards of reporting [JURIST report].