RACE AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF DRUG DELIVERY LAWS IN ...

Insofar as many drug users knowingly transfer narcotics in the course of their
using activities and facilitate or participate in drug delivery in order to obtain
narcotics, these data suggest that the majority of those who deliver serious drugs
in these contexts are white. The following section considers data sources that
shed more direct light on the racial and ethnic composition of those who deliver
serious drugs in Seattle.
THE RACIAL AND ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF DRUG DELIVERERS IN SEATTLE
Three data sources provide information about the racial and ethnic composition
of those who deliver serious drugs in Seattle, all of which were also considered in
the previous section of this report. These include SAMHSA’s Survey on Drug Use
and Health, the 2007–2008 Seattle-King County Needle Exchange Survey and the
observational study of the Capitol Hill and downtown drug venues. 76 Because
the methodological issues pertaining to these data sources were described
previously, they are reiterated only briefly in this section. The review of these
data sources indicates that the majority of those who deliver all serious drugs,
with the possible exception of crack cocaine, are white. As noted in the
introduction, this finding stands in sharp contrast to the racial composition of
those purposefully arrested for delivery of a serious drug.
76 Citizen complaints about perceived drug activity are not treated here as a reliable source of
information about the Seattle drug market and its participants, for several reasons. First,
people’s willingness to call 9-1-1 or to file a complaint with the police department is
undoubtedly shaped by a number of personal and social characteristics, none of which are well
understood. That is, not all persons who witness or believe they are witnessing illicit drug
activity will call 9-1-1 to report it. Second, an emerging body of research suggests that racial
stereotypes shape perceptions of the seriousness and/or dangerousness of potentially crimerelated
situations, particularly when information about those situations is limited. For example,
Quillian and Pager (2001) found that the percentage of young black men living in a
neighborhood has a strong positive effect on residents’ perceptions of the level of crime in that
neighborhood and that this effect exists even after crime rates and other objective factors were
taken into account. Similarly, Sampson and Raudenbush (2004) report that residents’
perceptions of neighborhood disorder are significantly affected by the racial, ethnic and class
composition of the neighborhood. Finally, in many cases included in our four-month sample of
9-1-1 calls, resident complaints about perceived drug activity were determined by officers to
have been incorrect and/or unreliable. For example, some 9-1-1 callers reported what they
perceived to be a large group of black teenagers smoking crack; when the police arrived, they
found instead a few youths, some of whom were smoking cigarettes (see Appendix B for other
examples). Although 9-1-1 calls and other narcotics complaints are not a reliable source of
information about the demographic characteristics of those who use and distribute illicit drugs,
they are a source of information about citizen complaints regarding drug use and will be
analyzed in that context.
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