Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office
SHERIFF ROGER L. HARRIS
COMMUNITY POLICING DATA
The Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office is supporting a new state law that may result in drivers who are pulled over being asked for certain demographic information. The Virginia Community Policing Act requires law enforcement officers to collect information from drivers during all traffic and investigatory stops and require agencies to submit the data to a statewide Community Policing Reporting Database maintained by the Virginia State Police.
The law also explicitly prohibits law enforcement officers from engaging in bias-based profiling, defined as actions based solely on the real or perceived race, ethnicity, age, gender, or other noncriminal characteristics of an individual. Statewide data will be analyzed to determine the prevalence of bias-based profiling and complaints alleging the use of excessive force.
State troopers along with police officers and sheriff’s deputies in Virginia are required to collect the following data based on the officer’s observation or information provided to the officer by the person stopped: race, ethnicity, age, gender, reason for the stop, location, whether a warning or summons was issued, whether any person was arrested or charged with a violation, and whether the vehicle or any person was charged.
On July 1, 2021, the following additional data must be collected; whether the person stopped speaks English; whether any law enforcement officer used any physical force against any person during the stop; and whether any person used physical force against any law enforcement officer during the stop.
All the data that we have collected can be accessed by clicking on the link.