Black people in NYC are 8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites

[yallerdawg]

I'm seriously beginning to wonder about those white folk in New York City (says Alabama resident).


Source: Vox, by P.R. Lockhart

Black New York City residents are arrested much more often than white people for marijuana-related charges, according to a new investigation from the New York Times.

The report is just the latest in a growing body of research that highlights a persistent racial gap in marijuana-related arrests.

They found that black New Yorkers and, to a lesser degree, Hispanic New Yorkers were more likely to be arrested for marijuana-related offenses than white residents, despite government surveys finding that black and white people use marijuana at similar rates.

“Across the city, black people were arrested on low-level marijuana charges at eight times the rate of white, non-Hispanic people over the past three years,” the reporters noted. The Hispanic arrest rate was roughly five times that of whites.

Experts argue that part of the issue lies in how black communities are perceived — and how they are treated by police. “What you have is people smoking weed in the same places in any neighborhood in the city,” Scott Levy, a special counsel with the Bronx Defenders who has looked into marijuana arrests, told the Times. “It’s just those neighborhoods are patrolled very, very differently. And the people in those neighborhoods are seen very differently by the police.”

Read it all at: https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/5/14/17353040/racial-disparity-marijuana-arrests-new-york-city-nypd