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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

PART II: SEATTLE PURPOSEFUL DRUG DELIVERY ARRESTS One of the goals of this study is to determine whether the racial and ethnic composition of those arrested in Seattle for delivery of a serious drug has changed since 1999–2001. The study also assesses how the extent of black overrepresentation among Seattle arrestees compares to that found in other mid-sized cities. The evidence described in this section indicates that Seattle arrests in 2005– 2006 are characterized by an even greater degree of racial disproportionality than was the case in 2000, and that the degree to which blacks are over-represented among drug arrestees in Seattle is greater than in all but one of the other midsized cities for which data are available. Prior analysis of Seattle Police Department (SPD) arrest records from January 1999 to April 2001 by the author of this report indicates that 64.2 percent of those arrested for delivery of a serious drug were black; another 14 percent were Latino. 85 Although the available evidence indicated that a clear majority of those who delivered serious drugs in Seattle during this period were white, only 17.6 percent of those arrested for delivery of serious drugs were non-Hispanic whites. Although a clear majority of those arrested during this previous time frame were black, the race/ethnicity of drug delivery arrestees varied widely across drug categories. In fact, most of those arrested for delivery of heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy and powder cocaine were white or Latino. The only drug category for which there were more black than white delivery arrestees was crack cocaine. But the SPD focused overwhelmingly on crack cocaine. Specifically, the SPD made 1,594 purposeful arrests for crack cocaine delivery, 85 Although Seattle police officers are not asked to record the ethnicity of arrestees on their incident reports, some officers do identify suspects as Hispanic. However, this practice is inconsistent. The previous analysis (Beckett 2004) utilized a methodology called Hispanic Surname Analysis to identify white suspects categorized by police officers as white. A numeric value between 0 and 1 was assigned to all arrestees initially coded as white in each subcategory (for example, delivery arrestees citywide, cocaine delivery arrestees in the West Precinct, etc). These numeric values are provided by the U.S. Census Department and represent the probability that a given surname corresponds to persons who identified as Hispanic/Latino in the 1990 U.S. Census. For each analysis, the mean of these numeric values (e.g. .18, or 18 percent) was used to estimate the percent of whites that are Latino. Applying this technique to the 1999–2001 arrest reports suggests that officers identify white Hispanics as Hispanic about half of the time. This technique was not used in the following analysis of the 2005–2006 arrest data because the last name of the suspect was redacted in some of the records provided by the SPD. As a result, whites are over-represented, and Latinos underrepresented, in the following analyses of Seattle drug arrests. 47
ut only 89 for methamphetamine, ecstasy and powder cocaine combined in the 1999–2001 period. Because the vast majority (74 percent) of the serious drug delivery arrests from 1999–2001 involved crack cocaine, the majority of those arrested were black. The SPD’s overwhelming focus on crack cocaine was thus a primary cause of racially disparate arrest rates in Seattle. 2005–2006 SEATTLE DRUG DELIVERY ARRESTS The analysis of more recent arrest records indicates that these patterns—the over-representation of blacks among drug arrestees and the dominance of crack cocaine arrests relative to arrests involving other serious drugs—has not changed. 86 A clear majority (74.1 percent) of the purposeful delivery arrests that took place during the four-month sampling period from 2005 to 2006 involved (only) crack cocaine. During this time, the SPD made 209 purposeful delivery arrests involving (only) crack cocaine, but only 24 involving powder cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy or heroin (see Figure 7). 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Figure 7. Purposeful Seattle Drug Delivery Arrests by Drug, 1999-2001 and 2005-2006 Meth Heroin Ecstasy Powder Cocaine Crack 1999-2001 2005-2006 Source: Seattle Police Department incident reports. Note: Another 7.1 percent of all purposeful drug delivery arrests involving serious drugs involved crack cocaine and another serious drug. 86 All narcotics-related Seattle Police Department incident reports for the months of April and May 2005 and 2006 were provided to attorneys from The Defender Association and the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project and made available for analysis. The results presented here are based on an analysis of this four-month sampling period. Incidents in which no arrest was made or where the arrest location fell outside Seattle city boundaries were not included in the analysis. 48
Page 1 and 2:
RACE AND DRUG LAW ENFORCEMENT IN SE
Page 3 and 4:
This report was commissioned as par
Page 5 and 6: LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES PAGE TAB
Page 7 and 8: Figure 9. Purposeful Seattle Drug D
Page 10 and 11: SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS FINDING 1 T
Page 12 and 13: FINDING 4 The focus on crack cocain
Page 14 and 15: INTRODUCTION Less than 5 percent of
Page 16 and 17: RACIAL DISPARITIES IN SEATTLE DRUG
Page 18 and 19: Table 1. Black and White Drug Arres
Page 20 and 21: esearchers found that rates of drug
Page 22 and 23: RESEARCH DESIGN AND ORGANIZATION OF
Page 24: serious drugs in Seattle are white.
Page 27 and 28: users: “Persons at almost all lev
Page 29 and 30: as the goal is to provide samples o
Page 31 and 32: percent of white Seattle residents,
Page 33 and 34: acial/ethnic groups. These data ind
Page 35 and 36: When approaching clients, surveyors
Page 37 and 38: youth. However, these surveys likel
Page 39 and 40: 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
Page 41 and 42: or partially publicly-funded treatm
Page 43 and 44: Primary Drug of Abuse Cocaine (all
Page 45 and 46: system at the time of their death w
Page 47 and 48: did not transfer drugs to the buyer
Page 49 and 50: Insofar as many drug users knowingl
Page 51 and 52: the person who provided these subst
Page 53 and 54: Table 7. Racial and Ethnic Composit
Page 55: Table 8. Summary of Data Pertaining
Page 59 and 60: time. 87 As noted previously, this
Page 61 and 62: Drug delivery arrests continue to b
Page 63 and 64: In sum, many of the arrest patterns
Page 65 and 66: Table 10. Racial Disparity in Drug
Page 68 and 69: PART III: EXPLAINING RACIAL DISPARI
Page 70 and 71: that a higher percentage of whites
Page 72 and 73: After clients had completed their s
Page 74 and 75: Table 13. Racial and Ethnic Composi
Page 76 and 77: whites engaging in the same behavio
Page 78 and 79: Analysis of the patterns found in t
Page 80 and 81: Table 16. Statistical Significance
Page 82 and 83: In sum, the evidence shows that rac
Page 84 and 85: those delivering drugs downtown wer
Page 86 and 87: for delivering a serious drug in Se
Page 88 and 89: to danger, instantaneous addiction
Page 90 and 91: 9.6 percent primarily abused other
Page 92 and 93: percent of those delivering drugs d
Page 94 and 95: officers made a drug arrest, issued
Page 96 and 97: Figure 18. Geographic Distribution
Page 98 and 99: Figure 20. Geographic Distribution
Page 100 and 101: As these maps illustrate, civilian
Page 102 and 103: and infant health by crack cocaine
Page 104 and 105: Although the crack trade has been a
Page 106:
Weapons were more likely to be seiz
Page 109 and 110:
supports an alternative explanation
Page 111 and 112:
Buckman, Charles, and John Lamberth
Page 113 and 114:
Hagedorn, John M. 1994. “Homeboys
Page 115 and 116:
Murphy, Sheigla and Dan Waldorf. 19
Page 117 and 118:
Ritter, Alison. 2005. A Review of A
Page 119 and 120:
United Nations International Drug C
Page 121 and 122:
APPENDIX B: UNRELIABLE 9-1-1 CALL E
Page 123 and 124:
Complaint: Arrival: Officer Update:
Page 126:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Katherine Beckett
Page 130:
THE DEFENDER ASSOCIATION
show all

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?