Des Moines police start issuing drivers written warnings. Here's what you should know:

The Des Moines Police Department has started issuing written warnings to drivers, forgoing verbal admonitions in a change that officials say helps better capture data on who police pull over for traffic stops.

The electronic warning citation program is a tool that can be used to gather more complete data on traffic violations and share it with the public, particularly data on race, and ethnicity — an effort community members and a third-party audit say is critical for detecting patterns of racial profiling or discrimination.

Implemented in a special order Oct. 19 from Chief Dana Wingert, the program is meant to complement data on traffic stops resulting in arrests or citations.

The additional data on warnings will help determine why the stop was made in the first place, if stops are made more frequently in certain locations or among certain populations, and if an officer shows a pattern of high stop rates resulting in arrests, a review by Pennsylvania-based consulting firm Public Works LLC said.

Community members who have called for transparency from the police department say the effort is a step forward in building trust but lamented that the order was not publicized to drivers.

Here's what to know about the new electronic warning citation and how it impacts drivers:

What is the electronic warning citation?

The TraCS Electronic Warning Citation is a written warning issued to drivers instead of verbal warnings for minor traffic violations, according to the chief's order.

Police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Parizek told the Des Moines Register the tool is part of a bigger state-issued system the department uses to issue traffic warnings, citations and complete crash reports.

The electronic warning tool isn't meant to replace the police department's traffic ticketing system, called the Electronic Citation Component, but it serves as a "complement" to it for "minor" driving infractions, such as a burned-out headlight or expired registration, Parizek said.

The warnings aren't filed with the courts and don't result in arrests, but they are logged in the police's system. That means police could eventually issue a citation to a driver who has received multiple warnings.

The TraCS system uploads a copy into a records management system that the Iowa Department of Transportation implemented in 2022, according to spokesperson Andrea Henry. Approximately 325 agencies in the state, including Iowa State Patrol, use TraCS warnings.

Why did the Des Moines Police Department implement this?

Parizek said the system was implemented, in large part, because it allows police to gather traffic violation data — particularly for race, ethnicity and gender— and, in turn, provide better analysis of traffic stop encounters.

In a survey conducted by Public Works LLC, nearly 85% of respondents in Des Moines said collecting data on all police stops — not just those resulting in a citation or arrest — is either “valuable" or “extremely valuable."

Additionally, capturing race, ethnicity and gender data is considered critical to "identifying disparities in individuals stopped or how they are treated during the stop," the firm wrote in its report.

Since race is not available on Iowa driver's licenses, Parizek said the department wanted to ensure it was keeping track of the data to share it with the public.

"Reviewing and analyzing data gathered helps us determine whether our public safety strategies are effective, it can alert us to crime patterns, it can discover bias in policing, and it helps us fulfill our transparency responsibilities to the community," Parizek said in an email. "All of that helps to maintain the trust our community has in our organization and will help build trust where it has (been) absent."

How does it work?

According to Iowa law, police can only stop drivers if they have reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime has, is or will be committed. Stops typically follow a traffic violation or are connected to a criminal investigation.

The TraCS software scans a driver's license and puts all of its information into the police department's system.

Officers have to review the form to make sure all fields are completed, including the drivers' personal information, their vehicle information, location and violation. Fields cannot be left blank or unknown, according to the chief's order.

If the race, ethnicity and gender of the driver are not on the driver’s license, officers must fully complete the form based on their best perception of the driver, according to the order. The same is true for tickets.

Parizek said officers typically refrain from asking questions regarding race, ethnicity, or gender because it can be perceived as insulting or too intrusive. Plus, it "has nothing to do with the driving behaviors that prompted a traffic stop," he said.

Police can no longer solely provide verbal warnings during a traffic stop unless it's approved by a supervisor — and police must document their reason for not issuing a written warning in the department's computer-aided dispatch system, according to the order.

Police are required to provide a copy of the written warning to the driver, Parizek said.

What does the data show so far?

Despite the addition of the written warnings, the police department issued about 10% more citations between Oct. 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022, compared to the same time frame starting last year.

Since the program was implemented on Oct. 19, 2022, 5,679 drivers have received warnings; 8,742 drivers have received tickets since Oct. 1, 2022.

In total, the police department has issued just over 19,200 traffic tickets since October 2021. The majority — about 12,400 — were given to white drivers, though the data shows Black drivers are ticketed at a disproportionate rate compared with Des Moines' population.

Nearly 4,000 tickets — or 20% — were distributed to Black drivers, who make up about 11% of Des Moines' population of roughly 214,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Another 3,400 tickets — or 18% — were given to Hispanic drivers who make up about 15% of the city's population. Those identified on tickets as Asian/Pacific Islanders comprise nearly 500 — about 3% — of the citations issued while making up about 7% of Des Moines' population.

Similarly, the majority of written warnings — about 3,500 — have been issued to white drivers since the program began. Another 1,700 were issued to Black drivers.

Hispanics made up about 700; Asian/Pacific Islanders about 160; and American Indian/Alaskan Natives about 20.

What do critics say?

But leaders from Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, an organization that has long pushed for police accountability and transparency, have voiced concerns over the lack of publicity on the new policy.

They said since the order took effect last October, the department has yet to let drivers know of the change, and the order is not posted on the police department's website. The department has released only one notice to the public, a two-minute-long video on Facebook published this April.

Organizers said drivers need to know they should receive a copy of an electronic warning citation if stopped by an officer — and they have the right to ask for that copy if it's not given.

"They're better equipped to know," said Sharon Zanders-Ackiss, development director at Iowa CCI. "This is why you don't keep information like this a secret.

"You don't make changes and not share. It's unfair to the community, and it's unfair to the people that have worked hard for this change."

Zanders-Ackiss explained that Iowa CCI has urged the department to collect data on police stops, as well as ban racial profiling and discriminatory pretextual stops. Those demands were folded into a proposed six-point ordinance in 2020 — work, she said, that began in 2018 but gained more traction two years later after the death of George Floyd.

The Public Works LLC encouraged the department to prepare an annual report to inform the public and suggested local law enforcement regularly host "in-depth" surveys with stakeholders and community members.

For many people of color, especially Black drivers, being stopped by a police officer can be traumatic, said Zanders-Ackiss and Harvey Harrison, a member of Iowa CCI and founder of the nonprofit Just Voices.

But the new policy, if and when shared with the public, shows a step toward rebuilding that trust, they said.

Drivers need to be aware that even an officer's warning is now being documented, and that documentation will help the department address issues around policing.

"The benefit over time is if you know there's a problem on racial profiling or other kinds of problems around policing until you can identify it, you can't fix it," Harrison said.

Zanders-Ackiss said she and other leaders have viewed the new policy as a "win-win" for the police department and Des Moines residents and calls for a "reason to celebrate."

Parizek said the police department did not deliberately hold off on sharing the change with the public back in October, but instead wanted time to present the data that came from the order.

Between the timing of the department's transition to the new software, along with some "issues" with it, Parizek said, June 30 was the first opportunity for the police department to share "reliable" traffic stop data with the ability to compare two full quarters.

Still, the biggest obstacle in gathering the actionable data quickly has been the overall cost to implement the Public Works LLC recommendations, Parizek added.

F. Amanda Tugade covers social justice issues for the Des Moines Register. Email her at ftugade@dmreg.com or follow her on Twitter @writefelissa.

Virginia Barreda is the Des Moines city government reporter for the Register. She can be reached at vbarreda@dmreg.com. Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Des Moines police started issuing drivers written warnings