Drugs - Drugs Arrests By Race

Arrest data reported by race do not clearly match total arrests — because race is not always (or unambiguously) reported. But in 2000, of a total of 1.28 million arrests where race was unambiguously stated, 64.2% of arrest were white, 34.5% were black, 0.7% were Asians/Pacific Islanders (APIs), and 0.5% were American Indians/Native Alaskans. A better way to look at such data is normalized by population — which is what we show in the graphic. The chart shows arrest rate translated into arrests per 100,000 population of each racial group. Immediately one fact leaps from the graph: proportionally many more blacks are arrested than members of the other races. The rates for whites, API's, and Indians have not changed greatly. The rates for blacks are down from a peak, in this chart, of 1,935 per 100,000 to 1,460. The actual peak was reached in 1989, when it was reported by the FBI to have been 2,464 arrests per 100,000 blacks 18 and over.

We saw in the last panel that the blacks' use of drugs is only fractionally higher than white or American Indian use. Why are the arrest rates for blacks so high? The answer provided by scholars and advocacy group — and echoed in the nation's large urban papers — is that (as one observer put it), "racial discrimination and stereotyping infect decision-making [in the criminal justice system] and skew the outcomes."²

Racial discrimination, while it undoubtedly exists, is not a sufficient explanation. The commerce in drugs has come to be centered in the ghettos, which are predominantly black, densely populated, and heavily patrolled. The black crime victimization rate is higher than the white rate, 37.2 for blacks, 28.2 for whites, both per 100,000 population. Most perpetrators are of the same race as the victims. The black crime rate is higher — and the justice system reflects that fact. There is more crime in the ghetto, and the deployment of police in such areas produces a higher payoff than in well-off suburbs where "narcs" would waste a lot of time staring at parked car and minimal "street life." The stereotyping is thus, to some extent, driven by an underlying state of fact.

Blacks prefer crack cocaine; 5 grams of crack constitute possession with intent to distribute. Whites prefer powdered cocaine; 500 grams (1.1 lbs.) constitute possession. It is easier to find drug users (or dealers) with small quantities of crack than people lugging around a pound or more of drugs. The ghettos are economically deprived areas. Many users in the ghetto support their habits with a little trading. Not least, the objective of the war on drugs is to break up trafficking rings. The big bosses (of whatever color) are difficult to nab. Law enforcement can thus achieve results easier in areas that tend to be poor, dense, and black.

It is almost axiomatic to say that, in this context, race is but an incidental aspects of the ghetto setting. If the ghettos were filled with Asians or whites, police practices would be the same but the racial categories would be different. Racial discrimination may not be the best explanation for patterns in drug arrests. The economically underdeveloped nature of central cities — and the social disruption that goes along with it — causes it, is caused by it — is probably a more neutral and accurate explanation.

Drug Arrests per 100,000 Population

For a somewhat deeper look into the past, the chart to the left provides a look at arrests rates back to 1965 — the year when the War on Poverty was born, the Voting Rights Act passed, the Immigration Act opened our doors to Latin America, the Vietnam War was in full swing, the Beatles were all the rage, and Watts erupted into a riot; 1965 also saw the passage of the Drug Abuse Control Amendments. It brought LSD, barbiturates, and amphetamines under control. Between 1965 and 1971 (the year of the War on Drugs), arrests rates skyrocketed — especially among whites. The arrest rate among white youths under 18 increased 22-fold, among white adults 11-fold, among black youths 7-fold, among black adults 5-fold. The black arrest rate in 1965, however, was already the highest. It increased least. And we were off.

Having looked at arrests, we turn next to what happens after the arrests. What about convictions?

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, various years, as collected in Source-book of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1994-2000, downloaded from http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/ or obtained from the Source-book CD-ROM.