New York City was scaling back its stop-and-frisk program even before a federal judge ruled in 2013 that the tactics underlying it violated the constitutional rights of minority citizens.
It’s hard not to look at marijuana arrests today without thinking of
that saga. Although the city has reduced the number of arrests for
low-level marijuana possession, black and Latino New Yorkers are far
more likely to be arrested for smoking in public than whites, who are
just as likely to use marijuana.
These
arrests have virtually no public safety benefit and can cause lasting
damage to people who often have had no other contact with the criminal
justice system. Charges are typically dismissed if people stay out of
trouble for a year, but in that period, they can be denied jobs, housing
and entry into the armed services.
The
city needs to do more to minimize arrests. District attorneys can take
the lead by refusing to prosecute most, if not all, of these cases.
Public
opposition to marijuana arrests surfaced during the 1970s, when
affluent families complained to lawmakers after seeing the future
careers of their children ruined by petty marijuana arrests.
The
Legislature subsequently barred the police from arresting people for
tiny amounts of the drug, unless it was being smoked or shown in public
view. Black and Latino communities have since borne the brunt of the
enforcement policy.
Mayor Bill de Blasio,
who took office three years ago, put into place the policies that have
reduced the number of people arrested each year for trivial amounts of
marijuana. Instead of being hauled off to jail, many people found with
small amounts are given summonses
and allowed to continue on their way. As a result, the de Blasio
administration is averaging about 20,000 marijuana arrests per year,
about half the average of the Bloomberg years.
Nevertheless, a new analysis
by Harry G. Levine, a sociology professor at Queens College, shows that
longstanding racial disparities have persisted. African-Americans and
Latinos make up about half the population, but, as in decades past, they
make up about 85 percent of those arrested for low-level marijuana
offenses.
The
Police Department argues that the arrests occur in places where it
receives drug complaints. But the study shows that arrests are
strikingly skewed along racial lines everywhere in the city.
African-Americans
are arrested at 15 times the rate of whites in Staten Island and in
Manhattan, and seven times the rate of whites in Queens. The disparities
shown in the analysis are especially striking in areas where
African-Americans make up a small proportion of the population.
Supporters
of so-called “zero tolerance” policing contend that low-level arrests
act as a net to scoop up more serious offenders. But as the study said:
“The young people arrested for marijuana possession are ordinary high
school and college students and young workers, the latter sometimes
building families. They are not career criminals.” Three-quarters of
those arrested for a crime last year had never been convicted of any
crime.
The state missed an opportunity to fix this problem five years ago
when a bill that would have made public display of marijuana an offense
similar to a traffic violation — rather than a crime — died in the
Legislature. Until lawmakers act, it’s up to the city’s criminal justice
system, particularly the district attorneys, to bring fairness and
sanity to these cases.
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