•  Arresting Blacks for Marijuana in California, 2007-2009: Possession Arrests in 25 Cites

by Harry Levine, Jon Gettman, Loren Siegel, Oct. 2012 

•  240,000 Marijuana Possession Arrests: Costs, Consequences and Racial Disparities of Possession Arrests in Washington, 1986-2010, by Harry Levine, Jon Gettman, Loren Siegel, Oct 2012

Note: Our reports about Colorado and Washinton in 2012, and the subsequent rejection by voters in both state of marijuana criminalization and prohibition, helped change the national debate about policing and marijuana, and very much affected NY City and State. This again made our work timely, relevanant, and showed what is sometimes possible in actually-existing America.

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Marijuana Arrests in New York City
 

• In New York City since 1997, 85% of the people arrested for marijuana possession have been  blacks and Latinos. The New York Police Department has arrested blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites, and has arrested Latinos at nearly four times the rate of whites. Yet, U.S. government studies have consistently found that young whites use marijuana at higher rates than young blacks or Latinos.

• It has cost New York City up to $75 million dollars a year to arrest and jail people simply for possessing marijuana.

• Most people arrested for lowest-level marijuana possession in New York City are young: 23% of the people arrested are teenagers; 55% are under 25 years of age; and 68% are under 30 years of age.
 

• The marijuana arrests target people who have never been convicted or even arrested before. Of the hundreds of thousands of people arrested for marijuana possession in New York City: 30% had never been arrested before for anything; another 41% had never been convicted or plead guilty to anything, not even a misdemeanor. Mostly the charges were dismissed or dropped. In other words, 71% of the people arrested for marijuana possession had never been convicted of any crime whatsoever. Another 11% had a previous conviction only for a misdemeanor.
 

 • Since 1977 and the passage of the Marijuana Reform Act by the state legislature, the possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana (7/8th of an ounce) has NOT been a crime in New York State.  Under New York State law, possession of a less than an ounce of marijuana is a violation, like a traffic violation.

• Most people arrested for marijuana in New York City were not smoking marijuana or did not have marijuana in public view. Most people simply had a small amount buried in their pockets or belongings. Most of the arrests were made as a result of a police stop. Police officers either tricked people into taking out their marijuana, ordered them to do so, or illegally searched their pockets and belongings.

• The marijuana possession arrests do not reduce serious crime or violence, but they are very useful for significant groups within the police department. The arrests are relatively safe and easy, provide training for rookie police, and allow patrol and narcotics officers and their supervisors to meet arrest quotas and make overtime pay. They produce records of police activity and help supervisors keep track of what officers are doing. The arrests are also the most effective way for the NYPD to collect fingerprints, photographs and other information on young people not yet entered in the criminal databases.

• New York City's racially-biased marijuana arrests are extreme, but they are not unusual. Large cities and counties throughout the United States arrest blacks and Latinos for marijuana possession at three, four, five, and up to ten times or more the rate of whites. Chicago and other major cities arrest blacks at seven times the rate of whites, just as New York City does. Along with DNA collection for misdemeanors and other policing policies, this produces an institutional form of unjust discrimination that some have termed "racism without racists." The law professor Michelle Alexander has rightly described this as "the new Jim Crow."