While there’s a growing debate over whether to legalize marijuana,
some are troubled by what they see as unfairness in enforcement of
existing laws.
Among them is the New England Area Conference of
the NAACP. The organization released a statement March 3 in support of a
Rhode Island House bill
that would legalize using marijuana or possessing up to an ounce.
Currently, possession of an ounce or less of marijuana is a civil
offense, punishable by a $150 fine.
Among their reasons for
supporting that change, the statement said, was that in the United
States, African-Americans were 3.7 times more likely than whites to get
arrested on marijuana charges, based on the number of arrests and their
share of the nation’s population.
James Vincent, president of the Providence NAACP, said the claim
was based on a June 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union,
“The War on Marijuana in Black and White.” That report charted how many
blacks and whites were arrested for marijuana possession and then, based
on the racial population of each state, what the marijuana arrest rate
per 100,000 people was for each race.
The ACLU report used statistics compiled by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, a wide-ranging database
of annual crime statistics that are often used in national crime
studies because each state submits the same type of information, which
allows apples-to-apples comparisons.
Nationally, according to the
report, the marijuana arrest rate for African-Americans in 2010 was 716
per 100,000, while for whites it was 192 per 100,000, meaning
African-Americans were 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for
marijuana possession.
The disparities were present across the
country; in some states, the arrest rate for African-Americans was as
much as 8.3 times the white rate.
In Rhode Island, before
possession of small amounts of marijuana was decriminalized, the arrest
rate for African-Americans was 524 per 100,000, while the rate for
whites was 201 per 100,000. That meant African-Americans were 2.6 times
more likely to be arrested on marijuana charges than their white fellow
citizens.
That Rhode Island disparity was specifically cited in
the bill text as a proposed “legislative finding” justifying enactment
of the legislation.
The authors of the ACLU report cautioned the
FBI data wasn’t perfect. They noted that the FBI didn’t count Latinos as
a separate group, usually putting them in the ‘‘white’’ classification.
That has the effect of preventing an accurate measurement of Latino
arrests and inflating the number of white arrests, the report said.
The authors said more research could be done to explore how other factors, such as past criminal records,
age of the persons arrested or the population density of the location
of the arrest might affect the arrest rates. The authors said they
weren’t trying to prove or disprove a particular theory on why the
disparities they found existed, just that the disparities were there.
And they aren’t the first to study the issue. In 2009, Human Rights
Watch, based in Washington, D.C., did a similar study, “Decades of
Disparity, Drug Arrests and Race in the United States.” While the ACLU
study focused on marijuana possession arrests, the Human Rights Watch
looked at all drug arrests by race from 1980 to 2007.
Like the ACLU, Human Rights
Watch used the FBI statistics and found arrest rates for blacks were
multiple times higher than whites. In the last year it analyzed, 2007,
it found African-Americans were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested on a
drug charge, close to the ACLU’s 3.7 multiple for marijuana arrests in
2010.
Our ruling
The NAACP New England Area Conference said
“African-Americans continue to be arrested at nearly three and one half
times the rate of whites” on marijuana charges.
The group
accurately cited a nationwide study that used a widely accepted data
source, and a similar study done a few years earlier found almost the
same disparity.
We find the statement True.
Studio33
http://www.amazon.com/shops/studio33
Virgin Atlantic Airways
http://tinyurl.com/pjbm6r6
Luxury French Lingerie
http://tinyurl.com/o7qcz7m
From chocolate eggs to chocolate coins, give your sweet tooth a treat with our delicious products.
http://tinyurl.com/nragc9j
Astore
http://astore.amazon.com/nevinghomebas-20
No comments:
Post a Comment