May 12th, 2008
Posted by Dan Berger, Drug Law Reform Project at 1:57pm	Drug Law Reform, Racial Justice

Racial Disparities in Drug Arrests: Same as It Ever Was

Last week saw the release of a pair of reports elucidating anew the racial bias that underlies America's response to illegal drug use. While rates of drug use are virtually identical across racial lines, African-Americans are arrested and incarcerated at a rate far outpacing the rest of the population. As detailed in the reports from the Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch, in 2006 two-thirds of those arrested for a drug violation were white and a third African-American, despite African-Americans comprising only 12.8 percent of the population and a comparable percentage of drug users.

Drug war apologists seek to explain away this gross racial injustice by claiming that police are merely focusing resources where violent crime and community complaints are most prevalent - namely, in inner-city African-American communities. If, the argument goes, a few extra African-American drug users wind up incarcerated due to this wholly sensible allocation of police resources, so be it. But this tired excuse no longer holds water, if it ever did, when police make more arrests for non-violent drug possession than any other crime.

In recently released figures you likely won't see law enforcement trumpeting on your local news, we've learned that our scarce public safety resources most often go toward ferreting out low-level drug offenders rather than murderers, rapists and other violent criminals. There were more arrests for drug abuse violations in 2006 (an estimated 1.9 million arrests, or 13.1 percent of the total number of arrests) than for any other offense. Furthermore, 82.5 percent of these arrests were for simple possession, and nearly half of these for marijuana.

When these numbers are taken into account along with drug use rates, the contention that the racial disparity in drug arrests is merely a byproduct of law enforcement's focus on violent crime or a reflection of African-Americans' greater appetite for drugs can be clearly seen for what it is: absurd.

When drug arrests, most for possession, have become law enforcement's most frequent function, and when these arrests are marked by patent racial disparity, they cannot be written-off as side effects of legitimate enforcement patterns.

The bottom line is that prohibition of consensual activity, such as drug use, will always open the door to selective enforcement. These crimes, almost by definition, lack a complaining witness or victim, meaning that law enforcement must be granted significant discretion in selecting where and whom to investigate for such crimes. Unfortunately, in the case of drug law enforcement, selective targeting of the African-American community has been effectively institutionalized, as further evidenced by last week's reports.

Permalink |	Drug Law Reform, Racial Justice

1. Anonymous Says:
   May 20th, 2008 at 10:23pm

   Police focus with high intensity on the low level drug 'offender' ignoring rape and murder activity for two reasons:
   Rapists and murderers do not bring in revenue from fines, classes, and urine tests paid by their victims (those who are convicted of these low level drug possession/sales 'crimes'. In fact, the rapists and murderers never contribute a dime into city, county, and state coffers like those low level offenders that recieve short sentences and then probation or just probation in order to get them paying asap. The second reason for ignoring real criminals & hassling low level drug offenders is that those murderers have weapons and cops are so paranoid about having to face any real danger they want nothing to do with the prevention of murders of the civilians they so clearly detest. Rapists often have weapons, too. They avoid them as well.

   Follow the money every time and there's going to be your answer to the whys of police activity.

   There's always the boogie man drug du jour being villified on TV 24/7 and it changes from time to time. First it was marijuana (Killer Weed), then it was crack cocaine, now it's methamphetamine but you'll note than never has it been nor will it be heroin -- the only real dead end street drug out there. Why, you might ask? Well, think about those at the top of government whose family made their fortune in the opium trade importing heroin to America. Is there any reason to think that they've ever stopped making a killing in the opium trade? Are there likely others in the position to allow heroin into the U.S. that could be raking in the bucks for doing so? Absolutely. Why don't the powers that be want meth around? Well, they can't suck a lot of money off the top of something that can be a do it yourself project made in America, now can they? They can, though, if they'd fix it so that it's made in Mexico and has to be smuggled in. They don't want Americans growing their own pot but if it's got to be smuggled in then that's a-ok -- skimmable makes it so. Cocaine is imported so it's ok as long as you don't turn it into crack. That's not a money thing it's a racial thing: the powers that be want to lock up all the black people they can for as long as they can. After all, fear rules. The wealthy white people can do all the cocaine they want and that's ignored. Cops don't mess with wealthy whites in America. Just poor blacks and hispanics are to be harassed and incarcerated en masse.

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