A group that advises the Sacramento City Council on racial profiling issues has laid out its new goals, which include a plan to use community meetings to improve relationships between the Sacramento Police Department and citizens.

The 13-member Community Racial Profiling Commission outlined its new objectives in a July 28 letter to the City Council. The letter, which is the commission’s quarterly report to the City Council, summarizes the commission’s work from January to March.

The commission's new goals are:

* “Foster better police/community relations through activities such as the CRPC community forums and the stakeholder workshops.”

* “Analyze relationships between racial profiling and social issues using quality research.”

* “Understand policing from a police perspective.”

Councilmembers did not make any comments about the report at their Tuesday meeting.

However, Pastor C. Singleton of Sacramento addressed the City Council. Singleton is a member of a local community group under the umbrella of the Caravan for Justice organization, which lobbies state legislators to reverse certain laws.

Singleton told councilmembers that her group wanted to meet with the City Council and the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office about racial profiling issues.

After the meeting, she told The Sacramento Press her views on racial profiling in Sacramento. “It’s prevalent here,” she alleged.

Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel, who attended the City Council meeting, told The Sacramento Press that the police department takes allegations of racial profiling seriously and investigates them. He said that most racial profiling allegations raised by community members concern events that have occurred outside the city, which means that the police department is not the law enforcement agency at issue.

The police department helps community members contact the agency that has jurisdiction over the area where the event occurred, he said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.