Posts tagged racial disparity

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? SHOW ME THE REST OF THE POST!

In 2008 alone, more than 40,000 people were arrested in New York for low-level marijuana offenses — and 87 percent of them were black of Latino. When you consider that white people are more likely to use pot than African Americans, the problem here becomes even clearer.

Put another way: In 2008, the police made more pot arrests than in the 12 years of Mayor Koch, plus the four years of Mayor Dinkins, plus the first two years of Mayor Giuliani. In other words, in one year, 2008, Bloomberg made more pot arrests than in 18 years of Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani combined.

Think about that for a New York minute. And then think about the fact that of those 40,000 odd people, 34,800 odd were black or hispanic.

The Mayor’s office defends this tactic, of course, as a variation of the “broken windows” theory and points to a 35% reduction in crime since 2001. What this position ignores, however, is that the arrests are severely racially skewed. What they’re policing are black and hispanic neighborhoods and people in those neighborhoods, not drug users. The downside of such a tactic is that it forces minorities to have a disproportionately greater amount of contact with the criminal justice system, it reinforces stereotypes and long-held notions about the relationships between minority communities and the police and of course, those ever growing arrest and conviction records.

[Of course, this is not the only area in which the law enforcement and criminal justice system exhibits racial disparity.]

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