AN ONLINE LIBRARY ABOUT MARIJUANA POSSESSION ARRESTS,
RACE AND POLICE POLICY IN NEW YORK CITY AND BEYOND
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AN
ONLINE LIBRARY ABOUT MARIJUANA POSSESSION ARRESTS,
RACE AND POLICE POLICY IN NEW YORK CITY AND BEYOND
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New York City's Marijuana Possession Arrests
• WASHINGTON DC, CHICAGO, ETC.
• ILLEGAL SEARCHES & QUOTAS (coming)
•
MORE RESEARCH
& WRITING (coming)
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New York Times, "Drug Bust" column by Charles M. Blow, June 10, 2011-new The Drug War: An effort meant to save us from a form of moral decay became its own insidious brand of moral perversion — turning people who should have been patients into prisoners, criminalizing victimless behavior, targeting those whose first offense was entering the world wrapped in the wrong skin. It feeds our achingly contradictory tendency toward prudery and our overwhelming thirst for punishment.
New York Times, "Escape from New York" column by Charles M. Blow, March 18, 2011 - new The New York Police Department under Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made more of these minor drug arrests than under his previous three predecessors combined. These targeting tactics mean that blacks are arrested for minor drug possession at seven times the rate of whites although on national surveys whites consistently say that they use marijuana more than blacks or Hispanics.
New York Times, "Smoke and Horrors," column by Charles M. Blow, Oct 22, 2010- new The war on drugs in this country has become a war focused on marijuana, one being waged primarily against minorities and promoted, fueled and financed primarily by Democratic politicians.... This is outrageous and immoral and the Democrat’s complicity is unconscionable, particularly for a party that likes to promote its social justice bona fides. No one knows all the repercussions of legalizing marijuana, but it is clear that criminalizing it has made it a life-ruining racial weapon. When will politicians have the courage to stand up, acknowledge this fact and stop allowing young minority men to be collateral damage
NYC August. Photo: Ken Stein @ flickr
New York Times, "Side Effects of Arrests for Marijuana" By Jim Dwyer, June 16, 2011- new
On
average last year, someone was arrested every 10 minutes in
New York Times, "A Call To Shift Policy on Marijuana" By Jim Dwyer, June 14, 2011 - new
More people are arrested in
New York Times, "A Smell of Pot and Privilege in the City" By Jim Dwyer, July 21, 2010
No
city in the world arrests more of its citizens for using pot than
WNYC, "Alleged Illegal Searches by NYPD May Be Increasing Marijuana Arrests." by Ailsa Chang. April 26, 2011 (excellent 10 minute radio show plus text) An investigation by WNYC suggests that some police officers may be violating people’s constitutional rights when they are making marijuana arrests. Current and former cops, defense lawyers and more than a dozen men arrested for the lowest-level marijuana possession say illegal searches take place during stop-and-frisks, which are street encounters carried out overwhelmingly on blacks and Latinos.
WNYC, "Alleged Illegal Searches By NYPD Rarely Challenged in Marijuana Cases." Ailsa Chang. April 27, 2011 (excellent 8 minutes radio show plus text) More than a dozen men who were arrested in these precincts for misdemeanor marijuana possession told WNYC the police recovered marijuana on them through illegal searches. None of them challenged these allegedly illegal searches in court.
New York Times, California Blacks Split over Pot Arrests - Jesse McKinley, July 19, 2010
This month, the Drug Policy Alliance — a New
York group that is supporting Proposition 19 — released a study showing that
blacks were arrested for possession at far higher rates than whites in
California’s 25 largest counties, often two or three times higher. In those
25 counties, blacks make up 7 percent of the population but accounted for 20
percent of the marijuana possession arrests; in Los Angeles County, which
accounts for about a quarter of the state’s population, blacks were arrested
for marijuana possession at three times the rate of whites. 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. In 2008, the police made more pot arrests “than in the 12 years of Mayor Koch, plus the four years of Mayor Dinkins, plus the first two years of Mayor Giuliani,” Mr. Levine wrote. “In other words, in one year, 2008, Bloomberg made more pot arrests than in 18 years of Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani combined.”
New York Magazine, "The Splitting Image of Pot" by Marc Jacobson, Sept 21, 2009 On the one hand, marijuana is practically legal – more mainstream, accessorized, and taken for granted than ever before. On the other, kids are getting busted in the city in record numbers. Guess which kids.
Am New York, "High Crimes" by Jason Fink, Sept 14, 2009 With pot as popular as ever, cops are busting NYers at record levels.
Graphs from City Limits Magazine's special issue "Buy and Bust: New York City's Drug War at 40." Summer 2009, Vol 33, No 2. Text of issue here. Protected pdf of whole issue here (large file downloads slowly).
City Limits – "Hooked: Four decades of drug war in New York City: Marijuana." By Sean Gardiner - 2009. An excerpt from City Limits Magazine's excellent whole issue on 40 years of the drug war on NY City.
Brooklyn’s 73rd Precinct (Ocean Hill - Brownsville) has the second highest highest marijuana possession arrest rate in NYC Photo: Todd Heisler, The New York Times
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