New guidelines Justice Department guidelines will ban law enforcement from profiling suspects on the basis of race, gender, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, according to reports.
They are an expansion of 2003 guidance that banned profiling on the basis of ethnicity and race, but not other factors.
The new guidance will also limit the instances in which law enforcement can profile for reasons of national security. It will eliminate an exemption that allowed officers to broadly use race as a factor when seeking out individuals in national security cases.
However, exceptions will remain for parts of the Department of Homeland Security. Agents working at and around the border and Transportation Security Administration employees at airports will be allowed to consider the prohibited qualities as factors in their work. Other agencies under DHS will be subject to the rules.
The guidelines only apply to federal law enforcement officer and state and local police who are working on federal task forces. Other local and state agencies will not have to comply with the guidelines.
While the new guidelines comes in the weeks after controversial grand jury decisions not to indict white law enforcement officers in the deaths of two unarmed black men, they have been under development since President Obama’s first term.
They are expected to be released on Monday.