Blacks Less Likely Than Whites to Sell Drugs, But More Likely to Be Arrested

[Jabberwocky]

Black People Are Less Likely Than Whites to Sell Drugs, More Likely to Be Arrested
The racist application of drug laws is by now all too familiar.

A quick note aside, the best book on this subject, aside from all of Charles Mills' great work as well as Miss Davis', is Michelle Alexander's somewhat recent book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Back to the story...

There is a critical imbalance between those being arrested for selling drugs and those actually selling them, according to a new report by the Brookings Institute. Sadly but predictably, given the discrimination still rampant in the US criminal justice system, black people are being arrested for selling drugs more often than people of any other race—even though white people are more likely to sell drugs.

The chart below shows how arrests of black Americans for violent and property crimes have fallen between 1980 and 2011, while drug-related arrests have more than doubled. And according to the report, black people are approximately 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white people. Yet the report notes that whites were deemed 45% more likely than blacks to sell drugs in 1980, by an analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—and a 2012 study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 6.6% of white people aged 12 to 25 have sold drugs while only 5% of black people in this age group have sold them.

It’s yet another example of how the drug war perpetuates racial disparities.

http://www.substance.com/black-peop...-sell-drugs-more-likely-to-be-arrested/13358/

I'll be happy when I see stories directly related to Mass Incarceration like this one on the front page of the NYT, or other such "reputable" papers, at least once a week. Lets see if that ever happens...

 

[FunctionalOlfactio]

Some major media covers these issues.

 

[poledriver]

I posted this article the other day -

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...-Much-More-Likely-To-Be-Arrested-For-It-Study

Doesn't matter tho

 

[somnilicious]

I always see these articles. I am hispanic and an ex- drug dealer. I buy all my drugs off of hispanic or black people and the only drugs I have ever seen white people selling are club drugs or pharms. They always spout this racism bit but from my experience black people are a lot more likely to sell drugs and take it as a serious business and of course black people are going to get arrested disproportionately because they stand on street corners in the ghetto slangin'. When have you ever seen a white man on a street corner straight selling drugs. Kinda makes for an easier target. Sorry just had to say.

 

[Dresden]

^--I agree. Blacks are much more likely than whites to sell crack, and law enforcement holds a particularly dim view of crack. Plus, they do it on street corners in the ghetto much of the time, making themselves easy targets to be searched and arrested, like somnilicious said.

 

[...]

Maybe it's just Namond getting arrested over and over again because he won't cut his hair. Cops can spot him from a mile away.

 

[421]

^--I agree. Blacks are much more likely than whites to sell crack, and law enforcement holds a particularly dim view of crack. Plus, they do it on street corners in the ghetto much of the time, making themselves easy targets to be searched and arrested, like somnilicious said.

And crackheads bring a lot of heat.