Texas State Police troopers will now ask every motorist they stop to provide them their race so it can be properly recorded.
The decision, announced by Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw this week, comes after a report by KXAN-TV found that troopers were recording the wrong race of minority drivers during traffic stops.
McCraw testified before the House Committee on County Affairs on Wednesday, where he admitted the problem and said it is something they are working to fix.
"The number of the people who are stopped that are coded incorrectly, that means we're understating the percentage because they're not in the equation," Committee Chairman Rep. Garnet Coleman said during the hearing.
McCraw placed some of the blame on the in-car computer system and said the department cannot immediately fix the problems with the computers, but will immediately take other steps, like asking drivers their race and ethnicity.
"What we can do better, and we should have been doing better, is collect the data accurately, as it relates to Hispanics. Plain and simple, [we’re] guilty," he said. "That should have been done better and we've got an obligation to fix that."
The agency's director went on to state that the issue is one of leadership and not the work done by troopers.
"We'll change our tactics statewide in terms of how we engage violators on the side of the road," he said.
