[Courtesy of The Sentencing Project]
Friends:
The Sentencing Project's new study, Disparity by Geography: The War on Drugs in America's Cities, is the first city-level analysis of drug arrests, examining data from 43 of the nation's largest cities between 1980-2003. The study found that since 1980, the rate of drug arrests in American cities for African Americans increased by 225%, compared to 70% among whites. Black arrest rates grew by more than 500% in 11 cities during this period and in nearly half of the cities, the odds of arrest for a drug offense among African Americans relative to whites more than doubled.
Among The Sentencing Project report's key findings:
- Six cities experienced more than a 500% rise in overall drug arrests between 1980 and 2003: Tucson (887%), Buffalo (809%), Kansas City (736%), Toledo (701%), Newark (663%), and Sacramento (597%).
- Extreme city variations in drug arrests point to local enforcement decisions as prime contributor to racial disparity.
- African American drug arrests increased 3.4 times the rate of whites despite similar rates of drug use.
The report was released in conjunction with Human Rights Watch's Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States, which documents that in 34 states the persistent racial disparities among drug offenders sent to prison. Both organizations urge public officials to restore fairness, racial justice and credibility to drug control efforts. They recommend public officials take a number of concrete steps, including:
Eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and restoring judicial discretion to sentencing of drug offenders;
Increasing public funding of substance abuse treatment and prevention outreach to make these readily available in communities of color in particular;
Enhancing public health-based strategies to reduce harms associated with drug abuse and reallocating public resources accordingly.
Both reports follow in the wake of the March 2008 recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The Committee urged that U.S. criminal justice policies and practices address the unwarranted racial disparities that have been documented at all levels of the system.
-The Sentencing Project
