Home > Blogs > Post Content

Report: Blacks and Latinos Make Up 86 Percent of Pot Arrests in NYC (471 hits)

You can officially call New York City the “Marijuana Arrest Capital of the World,” according to a new report from the Drug Policy Alliance. Not only do low-level pot possession offenses make up the number one reason for arrest in the city, 86 percent of those arrested are black or Latino. The overwhelming majority are people under the age of 30. In 2010, 50,383 people were arrested for low-level marijuana offenses.

In 2005, just 29,752 people were arrested for similar offenses, the Drug Policy Alliance says, adding that marijuana use hasn’t increased. Rather, the “dramatic rise” in arrests is due to a shift in policy within the NYPD to prioritize low-level drug offenses. The city is going on the sixth consecutive year of increases in arrests for pot possession.

“The NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg are waging a war on young blacks and Latinos in New York,” said Kyung Ji Rhee, director of the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reforms and Alternatives, in a statement. “These 50,000 arrests for small amounts of marijuana can have devastating consequences for New Yorkers and their families, including: permanent criminal records, loss of financial aid, possible loss of child custody, loss of public housing and a host of other collateral damage. It’s not a coincidence that the neighborhoods with high marijuana arrests are the same neighborhoods with high stop-and-frisks and high juvenile arrests.”

It’s not just that these mass arrests cripple black and Latino communities. Blacks are not more likely than whites, and in fact as of 1994 were less likely than whites to be past or current users of drugs. A more recent 2009 study from the Department of Health and Human Services pins drug use among black, white, Latino and Native American communities around a very close range, all are around seven to 10 percent. And yet the disparities in arrests are vast.

If ever a person needed more salient proof of systemic inequities in criminal justice system, these numbers seem to provide it.

Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Saturday, February 19th 2011 at 4:11PM
You can also click here to view all posts by this author...

Report obscenity | post comment

Share |

I'm sure there is inequality, but I don't think that these numbers fairly represent the inequality. The author states it herslef " It’s not a coincidence that the neighborhoods with high marijuana arrests are the same neighborhoods with high stop-and-frisks and high juvenile arrests.” It is not as simple as saying the NYPD is going after latinos and blacks to find drug possession - it is much more likely that they are already arresting these people for other offenses and they then have the opportunity to arrest them for possession when they see that they are possessing. Additionally, the article says that blacks and latinos are less likely to use drugs, but it did not cite who is more likely to sell the drugs, which would also give cause to possess it.

The real issue may not be with the police so much as it is with a social system that has not educated our youth and prepared them for responsible adulthood--a much more complex social problem than simply "racial profiling." Since it is so much more complex, it doesn't get discussed in quick five-paragraph articles.

Saturday, February 19th 2011 at 4:11PM
DAVID JOHNSON

I understand your cynicism Heath, but you are wrong--"those impacted by the War on Drugs" are not acquiescing! You see the research reports and policy briefs on the front page of the newspaper, but what you don't see is all of the community organizing at the local level going on around these issues. This isn't about marijuana, it's much bigger than that: it's about stop and frisk and other NYPD policing practices that target low income neighborhoods and people of color, and when it comes to that, there are many people working with friends and neighbors, schools and elected officials, to come up with ways of exercising our rights in police encounters and building support for legislative reform.
Public education is the first part of that, which is why reports such as this one are important, but they are only the first step. To get involved, check for community forums about police harassment and Know Your Rights trainings in your neighborhood, or attend a local Community-Precinct Council Meeting and call out the NYPD on their B.S.

Saturday, February 19th 2011 at 4:13PM
DAVID JOHNSON

Marijuana a little Herb/plant/Tree..... NYPD wants to make this little plant the controversy!! You got that right!! Give me a Break!!!

Meth, Crack, Oxycotin, Opium, Heroin, Cocaine (the rich man's High) yet... all of these busts stem from marijuana!!!

Right now our government is trafficing more Opium into the US Borders than immigrants and they are tripping! as Irma would say.... Only In America!
Saturday, February 19th 2011 at 5:19PM
Cynthia Merrill Artis