The post NYPD Facing Criticism For Racial Disparity in Marijuana Arrests appeared first on High Times.
New York City has tried to reduce the penalties for getting caught with weed. Despite this, there remain some troubling trends in how the city enforces cannabis laws. With the NYPD facing criticism for racial disparity in marijuana arrests, city policymakers are returning to important conversations about race, cannabis, and law enforcement.
Council Members Call Out NYPD
In 2013, NYC Mayor de Blasio ordered a change to the way NYPD enforced weed laws. Under the order, cops are supposed to give a summons to the huge majority of people caught with weed instead of arresting them.
Since then, the city has seen a 40 percent drop in marijuana arrests. But there are still some obvious problems
At a hearing earlier today, City Council members criticized the NYPD for huge racial disparities in marijuana arrests. According to New York Daily News, there were roughly 17,500 arrests last year for marijuana possession. A full 86 percent of those arrested were black and Latinx.
“The racial disparities have not changed one bit, and arrests are still too common in communities of color,” said Councilman Donovan Richards. “If the administration is serious about changing this disparity, we’re not seeing it.”
NYPD officials acknowledged that the stats do point to racial inequities. But they also said that officers were not doing anything wrong. Instead, NYPD authorities said that cops were simply responding to the neighborhoods where they get the most complaints.
“Where the arrests are made, I believe, are where the complaints are,” said Dermot Shea, NYPD’s chief of crime control strategies.
But that explanation did not satisfy many Council Members. In