1. Arrests of Black & Brown people rose in Colorado. Plummeted for whites. SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/2016/06/29/483954157/as-adults-legally-smoke-pot-in-colorado-more-minority-kids-arrested-for-it … 2. Arrests in New York went up. SOURCE:https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2017/02/marijuana-arrests-in-nyc-increase-in-2016-still-large-racial-disparities-109306 …
-
I’m curious what the exact numbers are. The rate is a good metric of rate — but it’s a poor metric of overall effect. For instance, the rate won’t tell you if the number of POC being arrested has actually dropped.
Good points man. The rates vary from city to city, group to group. I’ve provided a number of sources for you to consider. DC & NYC Chief among them. What’s happening with Black & Latino teens in Colorado is also disturbing.
-
-
If legalization led to a drop of arrests for POC covered by the law, we should say that, because wold then POC benefit from legalization on the whole. That’s a really key fact to understand the policy’s primary impact.
-
But to only focus on disproportionality while ignoring the decrease of arrests of POC overall would mislead people into thinking legalization led to more POC being arrested — and that's apparently not true.
-
Disproportionate enforcement is a problem, and so is rising disproportionality, but legalization still provides a net benefit to POC.
-
The risk of promoting false information in this context is that people think legalization is the problem, when, in fact, it has a net benefit and the problem is that legalization isn't thorough enough at decreasing misguided arrests.
-
Fascinating discussion. I agree that separating totals from rates is important to show legalization benefits all, though not proportionately. The larger context is that the criminal justice system, generally, is systematically racist and drug offences are among the most biased.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.