Racial Profiling Training Requirements for Peace Officers

With the passage and signing of House Bill 2224, beginning August 28, 2008, peace officers with the authority to make traffic stops no longer have to obtain Racial Profiling training on an annual basis. With this law change, licensed peace officers with the authority to make traffic stops must simply obtain three hours of Racial Profiling training every three year continuing education reporting period. Therefore, if an officer chooses to do so, he/she can wait until the last year of the reporting period to obtain all three hours of Racial Profiling training instead of trying to find one hour within a particular calendar year.

What does this mean for commissioned peace officers and law enforcement agencies?

  1. All commissioned peace officers with the authority to enforce motor vehicle/traffic laws, regardless of whether they actually make traffic stops, must attend three hours of Racial Profiling training each three year Continuing Law Enforcement Education (CLEE) reporting period.
  2. Peace officers who have no authority to make traffic stops are exempt from this training requirement. For example, Missouri Division of Liquor Control Agents have no authority to make traffic stops, therefore, they do not need Racial Profiling training.
  3. All racial profiling training used to meet this requirement must either be obtained from a licensed/approved provider of continuing education, a training provider that has obtained a POST control number, or by the officer’s commissioning agency provided that the course has been submitted to POST for preapproval.
    If a law enforcement agency wants to provide Racial Profiling training to its officers through in-service training, they must submit the course to POST for approval before the training is delivered. There is no cost to the agency for this course approval. The specific course formatting requirements can be found on the POST forms page.
  4. The mandated statutory learning objective for Racial Profiling is as follows: “The training shall promote understanding and respect for racial and cultural differences and the use of effective, non-combative methods for carrying out law enforcement duties in a racially and culturally diverse environment.” The training can be tailored for patrol officers, first-line supervisors, command staff officers or top administrators.
  5. The Racial Profiling training requirement is part of the forty-eight hour CLEE requirement, not in addition to it. Depending on how the course is constructed, it may also be used to meet the core CLEE requirements of Legal Studies, Interpersonal Perspectives, Technical Studies or Skill Development. The certificates of completion will reflect this two-part usage.

If there are any questions on these new Racial Profiling requirements, or any other question concerning CLEE training requirements, please feel free to contact a representative of the POST Program by calling (573) 751-4905, or by email at post@dps.mo.gov