New York City is entering its 10th year of pouring tens of millions of dollars into arresting people for the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana cases. New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer says that although whites make the heaviest use of pot, they are the least likely to be arrested for it. Last year, black New Yorkers were seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession and no more serious crime. Latinos were four times more likely.
Sociologist Harry Levine of Queens College says that during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first two terms in office, the lowest-level marijuana arrests were up, on average, by 50 percent over when predecessor Rudolph Giuliani was in office. Last year, the city made 40,300 such arrests — about 12 percent of arrests for all crimes. Of these, 87 percent were of blacks or Latinos.
For Pete’s sake. The correlation isn’t any real revelation, and a big spin for “sociologists”. Those engaged in activity suspected of being criminal, of any kind, might actually get their belongings searched. That might account for the difference.
If the argument is that more blacks are being suspected of engaging in criminal activity necessitating a search of their belongings, that’s a different argument. That’s more of a profiling case.
Finding pot on one’s person means the person has to be in front of a cop to get checked out. It’s not like they’re going door to door. Silly story by the NY Times.
[...] Pot Arrests For NYC Blacks 7 Times More Likely Than For Whites New York City is entering its 10th year of pouring tens of millions of dollars into arresting people for the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana cases. New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer says that although whites make the heaviest use of pot, they are the least likely to be arrested for it. Last year, black New Yorkers were seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession and no more serious crime. Latinos were four times more likely. (The Crime Report, 23.12.2009) [...]