When Philadelphia police officers stop motorists and pedestrians in the future, they will be required to fill out a new form tracking the person's race, gender and reason for the stop. The new reports are a direct result of a study conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) nearly two years ago, strongly suggesting that African-Americans are stopped by officers more often than whites—a phenomenon known as "racial profiling."

The Philadelphia Police Department began testing the form, known as a "48A," three weeks ago. Officials plan to spend a week analyzing completed reports before instituting them citywide later this month.

John Gallagher, who oversees this and other internal disciplinary programs for the Police Department, could not be reached for comment.

James Jordan, Integrity and Accountability officer for the police department, says he will scrutinize the forms, comparing the percentage of black motorists pulled over to the percentage of black residents living in that police district.

Jordan says his task is challenging because "the truth" is not easy to discern. For instance, an officer may claim to pull over a black motorist for running a stop sign, when in fact the person was guilty only of "driving while black." Conversely, motorists may claim to be the target of a racially motivated citation, when they were actually speeding or driving with an expired license plate.

"I am not sure it is going to be easy to draw conclusions," Jordan says. "At least, not right away."

Jordan says the phenomenon of black drivers and pedestrians being stopped in Philadelphia neighborhoods is more complicated than the racial profiling that New Jersey state troopers are being accused of. "Driving on the highway is a more homogenous event," he says. "The pattern of activity in an inner-city neighborhood includes many variables."

Although some data was missing from the police reports on which the ACLU based its study last July, the group found major racial disparities in traffic stops. In the 8th Police District, in the Northeast, 91.2 percent of the population is white and 6.5 percent is black. The report found that, during a one-week period, 20 percent of drivers stopped were African-American and 69.3 percent were white (Asians and Latinos constituted another 5.3 percent of stops).

ACLU attorney Stefan Presser contends that even if his data is not 100-percent accurate, the level of race disparity he discovered "defies explanation."

Presser is pleased to see the police department using the 48As, but he questions why it took 18 months to develop them. "I have real frustration with how long it took the department to generate this form."

Presser plans to monitor the reports as officers fill them out, also checking to see if the census tract data for race is proportionate to the number of stops made. "Hopefully, once we have the data, we can get our hands on a larger problem," he says.