Report Alleges Racial Disparities In Seattle Drug Arrests

[1a2b3c]

Drug dealers arrested by Seattle police are most often black, even though whites dominate the drug-dealing trade and constitute the majority of users, according to a report being released today.

Beckett analyzed Seattle police data between January 1999 and April 2001 to determine the race of those arrested for selling heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and Ecstasy: 63 percent were black, 19 percent white and 14 percent Hispanic. Asians, Native Americans and 17 arrests in which race or ethnicity wasn't recorded accounted for the remainder.

ntravenous drug users were surveyed over two weeks in April 2002 at five needle-exchange sites in Seattle. Respondents were asked their race, the drug used in the needle they were exchanging, whether they had gotten the drug in Seattle and the race of the dealer.

Survey results showed one-half of the dealers were white and 14 percent were black.

"Black heroin deliverers are more than 22 times more likely than white heroin deliverers to be arrested," the report says. "Black methamphetamine deliverers are over 31 times more likely than white methamphetamine deliverers to be arrested."


http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1879/a02.html?1738

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Latest breaking news: And in another locality in the U.S.A....

...the wheel gets reinvented...again.

[1a2b3c]

3. Yeah no shit

Thats kind of what i was thinking.

[MrSandman]

2. Racism

In the War on Drugs. I am shocked, shocked I tell you.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

4. Wasn't it The Onion

who frequently cites statistics from the Institute for the Study of the Patently Obvious? This one should be added to its bibliography list.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

5. Suppose McNabb

was under suspicion of money-laundering to feed an addiction to synthetic opiates, he'd be in the pokey right now.