Pot-penalty-reduction policy has something in it for everybody

[Elderberry]

Grits for Breakfast 10/3/2018

One often hears critiques that the justice system is "racist," and even those who hesitate to use that word must acknowledge that it produces discriminatory outcomes. The 21st century culture-war debates around #cjreform frequently are less about whether the system discriminates so much as whether there exists ill intent. Or whether, when discriminatory outcomes are so persistent and ingrained, the actors' "intent" even really matters.

When one examines the system closely, however, discriminatory outcomes aren't universal. They're more prevalent in some parts of the system than others, and one of the biggest sources of discriminatory outcomes is the Drug War.

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition just put out a new data tool for analyzing criminal cases in Harris County since 2010, and it provides a useful starting point for demonstrating this observation.

For example, looking at countywide DWI data since 2010, we find that 13.8 percent of defendants were African American. Black folks make up about 19 percent of Harris County residents, so that's actually a lower proportion than their share of the population.

By contrast, when we look at marijuana arrests over the same period, we discover that a whopping 48.5 percent of defendants were African American.

More: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2018/10/pot-penalty-reduction-policy-has.html

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

By contrast, it's hard not to conclude that there's more discriminatory targeting of black folks in the realm of drug enforcement. How else can HPD explain why nearly 60 percent of pot arrestees are black compared to a quarter of the city population? Nothing else but discriminatory enforcement makes sense to explain these data.

I disagree.  It could be that blacks are simply more likely to smoke pot than whites.  It could be that blacks are more likely to get arrested for other things, and then the cops find they have pot on them.  It could be that blacks are more likely to be disrespectful to the cop who might have been willing to look the other way.

A disproportionate arrest rate is, IMO, a sign that discrimination should be investigated, but it is not in itself proof of discrimination.