A Justice Department draft proposal for updated anti-discrimination guidelines would prevent FBI agents and other federal law enforcement from using crime statistics in law enforcement activities, documents obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller show.
The documents were provided by a source familiar with the proceedings who requested anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ‘It’s Time To Clean House’: Former Senior FBI Agents Blast Politicization Of The Bureau)
The DOJ’s new policy would expand restrictions against the use of protected characteristics in law enforcement activities, including the use of “facially neutral factors as a proxy” for certain protected characteristics.
FBI agents and other federal law enforcement officers would be banned from using a person’s “actual or perceived race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, sex characteristics, disability status, or gender identity” in “any degree,” the documents show. The ban even applies to scenarios where using protected characteristics might otherwise be lawful.
A specific example cited in the documents is “high crime areas” typically subject to “aggressive law enforcement.” Directly or indirectly using protected characteristics to find suspects “reflects and invites bias,” making it prohibited by the proposed DOJ guidelines.
READ DOCUMENT BELOW:
DOJ Document 1 by James Lynch on Scribd
Officers would be given an exception to the rules if their information about a suspect with protected characteristics passes a particular set of criteria for suspect-specific information. The information about a suspect with protected characteristics “must be relevant to the precise locality and time frame,” among other specific criteria.
Community crime statistics are explicitly identified as information that does not qualify for the geographical exception, the documents show.
“[O]fficers and agents should not use statistics about arrest rates in particular communities when making decisions about where and how to focus their activities. Current and historical patterns of discriminatory law enforcement have led to higher rates of arrest in certain communities, particularly African American communities,” the documents say.
Crime statistics are “inherently biased and unreliable” and using them “reproduces the very discrimination” the DOJ policy is designed to eliminate, the documents continue.
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FBI agents and other federal law enforcement were permitted by the 2014 anti-discrimination guidelines to “properly consider” protected characteristics, a more flexible standard than prohibition. The new policy will apply to a wider swath of law enforcement activities than the 2014 DOJ guidelines, which FBI agents were advised to use for “routine or spontaneous” activities.
With the new DOJ guidelines, officers will be required to apply them to investigative efforts such as data collecting and watch listing. (RELATED: Merrick Garland Reportedly Identified As ‘Senior’ Official In Hunter Biden Probe Whistleblower Complaint)
Research demonstrates crime is extremely concentrated in a few locations and committed by a small number of repeat offenders. An April 2023 report from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research stated less than 5% of the addresses in a city generate over 50% of the violent crimes, showing how crime is concentrated in specific locations. The same report found that 5% of offenders account for approximately 50% of violent crime in any given city, demonstrating the prolific nature of a small subset of criminal offenders.
Additionally, FBI crime data analyzed by the Heritage Foundation points to an increase in black violent offenders and black victims of violent crime. From 2011 to 2020, the percentage of black violent crime victims increased by 3.2% to a 32.7% peak in 2020. The total percentage of violent offenders who were black rose 2.4%, up to a 39.4% peak.
The overall murder rate rose by nearly 30% in 2020 alone, the single largest year-by-year increase since the FBI began reporting crime statistics in 1960, the Heritage Foundation found. This trend happened while Black Lives Matter activists were calling for police to be defunded in urban areas.
The FBI referred the Daily Caller to the DOJ when asked for comment. The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.