Advisory committee seeks common definitions for motor‑vehicle stop data; staff warns tight timeline for vendor changes
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Summary
The motor vehicle stop data advisory committee is drafting common definitions and training materials to normalize reporting across agencies. Staff said system changes need to be ready by June to allow vendors six months to implement so new data can be captured starting Jan. 1, 2027; commissioners raised concerns that timeframe may be too compressed.
Deputy Chief Colin Grissom told the commission that the motor vehicle stop data advisory committee — charged with improving the state’s racial‑profiling/motor‑vehicle stop reporting — has met twice and split into subcommittees to produce a definitions "dictionary" and training components.
"The bulk of what the committee has been working on is definition," Grissom said. Differences in how agencies capture and report items such as contraband create variability in statewide data; the committee hopes a common glossary will improve comparability even before any system changes are made.
Staff identified a self‑imposed timeline: any anticipated system or collection changes need to be finalized by June so RMS and ticket‑writer vendors can build the changes in time for data capture beginning Jan. 1, 2027 (reporting on 2027 calendar‑year data would occur the following January). Commissioners from agencies of different sizes warned that six months may be insufficient for vendors and smaller agencies with homegrown systems; staff said the committee is aware and will push changes out to 2028/2029 if required.
Grissom said the committee can produce meaningful improvements even through better definitions alone, which would improve "apples-to-apples" comparisons without a large system rewrite.