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

downtown (e.g. in census tract 81) were white. 105 Thus, whites appear to be
dramatically under-represented among those arrested downtown. Conversely,
although the evidence indicates that between 12 and 33 percent of the downtown
drug transactions involve black drug deliverers, 85 percent of those arrested for
drug delivery downtown are black (see Table 14).
Table 14. Racial and Ethnic Composition of Downtown Drug Deliverers
Downtown
Transactions
(Needle
Exchange
Survey, Second
Wave ) (n=307)
Downtown
Transactions
(Observational
Study)
(n=204)
Downtown
(Census Tract
81) Delivery
Arrestees
(SPD) (n=75)
White
Black
Hispanic/
Latino
Native
American/
Alaska Native
Asian
51.5% 12.1%* 22.8% 1.6% 3.9%
49.5% 33.3% 14.2% 1% .5%
9.3% 85.3% 1.3% 2.7% 1.3%
Sources: 2007–2008 Seattle-King County Needle Exchange Survey; Nyrop, Demographic
Comparisons of Two Public Venue Drug Markets in Seattle; Seattle Police Department
incident reports.
Note: *Approximately 2 percent of the transactions described by needle exchangers involved
a mixed race person identified as “black and white.” These drug deliverers have been
combined with deliverers identified as black or African American. Approximately 8 percent of
the drug deliverers were identified as “other” or race was unknown. As noted earlier, the fact
that Latinos are sometimes identified by SPD officers by race means that the white figure of
9.3 percent is likely inflated.
If the higher estimate of black involvement reported in the observational study
(33 percent) is used as the measure (i.e. benchmark) of black involvement in drug
delivery, and this figure is compared with arrest outcomes, the results indicate
that blacks delivering drugs downtown are 13.6 times more likely to be arrested than
105 Insofar as some of those identified as “white” are Hispanic/Latino, this figure may over-state
white representation among downtown drug delivery arrestees.
66