Amsterdam police to record why cars are stopped in fight against racial profiling

The Amsterdam police will soon start an experiment in which they will record exactly why they pull over a car for a check in an attempt to reduce racial profiling by the police. The mayor an the police chief were against implementing this experiment immediately, but the majority of the city council voted for it on Thursday, Het Parool reports. Mayor Eberhard van der Laan will now work with the Amsterdam police, the Ministry of Security and Justice and the National Police to get this experiment launched as quickly as possible. Every time a police officer in Amsterdam pulls someone over, he or she will fill in a form on exactly why this happened. These forms are already being competed in England, where they seem to ensure a higher percentage of successful checks, according to the newspaper. Police chief Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg is against this method. According to him the form does not take into account the officer's "knowledge and gut feeling". It asks that people be divided into nationality and increases bureaucracy. He adds that England can't be compared to the Netherlands because cops in the Netherlands need to have a reasonable suspicion of an office before detaining someone. In England the police can stop anyone they like, he said. Van der Laan wanted to wait with the experiment until the results of a national investigation into the forms are in - expected in September. But the city council insisted that an experiment be launched in Amsterdam as soon as possible. The discussion about ethnic or racial profiling flared up again after rapper Typhoon was pulled over in Zwolle. The police did not trust the combination of his age, skin color and the expensive car he was driving. The officer in question apologized to the rapper and Typhoon was asked to take part in a campaign against racism in the police.