Since taking the job in March, Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad has been confronted in community meetings with the question of whether officers engage in racial profiling.
Conrad doesn't think Louisville Metro Police stop people based on the color of their skin - and now he wants to prove it.
With Conrad's backing, the Louisville Metro Police have asked for $55,000 for a study into whether officers use racial profiling when making traffic stops.
Louisville Metro Police officers are supposed to log the race of people stopped for traffic violations, but that data has not been analyzed since the Louisville and Jefferson County police departments merged in 2003.
Conrad said he wants to be able to talk about crime issues in Louisville without the discussion being bogged down with concerns about racial profiling, and a new study will help him do that.
"I find that we're talking about this thing that I don't think we're doing," he said.
The department has a policy against racial profiling. Officers are only supposed to initiate stops if they have "reasonable suspicion" that someone has committed a crime or is about to commit a crime and the officer can testify to that in court, he said.
The study would not look at pedestrian stops by police, Conrad said.
But he said if he's wrong and the study does show that racial profiling is a problem, Louisville Metro Police would likely institute training programs to combat it.
He said individual officers shown to use racial profiling could also face an investigation by the department's Professional Standards Unit and be subject to discipline, he said.
Dave Mutchler, president of the Fraternal Order of Police lodge for the Louisville police, did not return a telephone message seeking comment.
Conrad said the request for $55,000 next fiscal year is for the estimated cost of the study, and is the result of discussions between LMPD and the University of Louisville's justice administration department, which Conrad would prefer conduct the study.
The U of L justice administration department conducted a similar study for the old Louisville Police Department, and the $55,000 figure was based on the cost for performing that study, he said.
The new study could cost less because of technological advances, he said. He added that he'd like to be set up a system for an annual analysis of racial profiling within the department.
Black males make up a disproportionate number of Louisville's jail population.
In 2011, an average of 49 percent of people in custody at Metro Corrections were black males, according to figures provided by jail spokeswoman Pam Windsor. White males were 35 percent of the total, white females 7 percent, black females 5 percent and Hispanic males 3 percent.
Louisville's population was 22.9 percent black and 70.6 percent white in 2010, according to the U.S. Census.
Metro Council member Attica Scott, a Democrat whose District 1 covers portions of western Louisville, said she's often confronted with concerns about racial profiling when talking to the community. She said some people offer first-hand accounts.
"I want to know whether or not it's happening," Scott said. "I want to see the facts."
Scott said she doesn't know if LMPD is practicing racial profiling, a topic that has gotten more attention since the February shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida.
She said she's heard no object from her Metro Council colleagues to the study and believes it will be approved. Scott said the results should be widely disseminated to the public.
The study wouldn't begin until well into the new fiscal year, which begins July 1, Conrad said.