Is The Criminal Justice System Racist?

[Ta-Nehisi]

The news that Virginia has performed it's first execution in two years got me thinking about a topic that seemingly fallen off the radar this season--criminal justice reform. The death penalty, sadly, seems here to stay. But one of the reasons I so emphatically fell for Jim Webb (before Kathy took him apart) was because in addition to being outspoken about veterans issues, he's probably the most prominent senator i've heard speak on reforming our prisons. I could be wrong on that, and would love to be corrected. That said, I have heard very little about this issue out on the campaign trail. Frankly, this is as it should be--you don't win elections by talking about shortening the sentences of criminals. Still, I hope this issue is a priority, should Obama win.

Indeed, to me, one of the promises of an Obama administration would be that he could (hopefully) deracialize certain issues that really occur to me as matters of basic fairness and justice. Heather Macdonald has had a field day dismantling those who claim that the criminal justice is racist. But I think that's a strawman. Frankly, I don't much care about whether the law was intended to hurt black people, nor do I care whether it's called racist or not. To the extent that the "racist" label is a distraction, it should be jettisoned. It seems like the real question should be, Does our drug policy make sense? Are we helping or hurting the situation in our inner cities?

Comments

Don't concede this argument. The crim justice system is, in various ways, racist. Just because some of the assertions of those who claim the system is racist can be debunked does not mean that the system is not racist. In some ways, at some levels, it is. The Philly Inquirer had a series recently about summary offenses in the Philly suburbs, and it was plain as day that suburban police departments are using "disorderly conduct," "disturbing the peace," and similarly vague, in-the-eye-of-the-beholder charges to keep black men from Philly off their streets - one of them more or less admitted this openly. Then there's the data about the likelihood of blacks vs. whites being executed for similar crimes. Then there are all the incidents that don't even show up in stats, such as where white kids are given a warning and taken home to their parents, and black kids are taken to the juvenile detention center. Then there's the history of black suspects being beaten up by the cops and the non-history of like treatment of white suspects - and the fact that it's black cops administering some of the beatings may evince a lack of individual bias but does not disprove a systemic bias.

Posted by The Navigator | May 28, 2008 1:08 PM

We shouldn't call the justice system racist because it makes people uncomfortable?

Don't put it in your campaign slogan, maybe, but call a spade a spade. The justice system systematically underserves and overprosecutes racial minorities, in large part because the powers that be value them less. That's racism.

Posted by phil | May 28, 2008 1:25 PM

The (Completely Insane) War On Drugs is essentially a racist civil war.

By the way, Sam Brownback had a great deal to say about prison reform, to his credit. Of course he was a complete tool in most other ways, and a hopeless candidate, so no one noticed.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | May 28, 2008 1:31 PM

I don't have an opinion today on whether the American criminal justice system is racist. But outcomes of our criminal justice system have to be affected by racism among police, prosecutors, witnesses, judges, juries, and so on. I remember a big study something like 10 or 15 years ago that showed black men accused of a given crime were much more likely to be arrested than white men, that black men arrested for a given crime were much more likely to be prosecuted than white men, that black men prosecuted for a given crime were much more likely to be found guilty than white men, and that black men found guilty for a given crime received on average much harsher punishments than white men. I don't remember any serious disputes with the data or methodology. But this was a while back. I hope the situation has improved.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 28, 2008 1:32 PM

Studies on the death penalty show that, all other things being equal, people who kill white people are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks, and also that black defendants, all other things being equal, are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants:

"Other things being equal, the studies show, killers of white people are more likely to receive death sentences than killers of blacks."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5D8113CF937A15751C0A963958260&scp=7&sq=capital+punishment+racial+disparities&st=nyt

"In the new study, Scott Phillips, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, found a robust relationship between race and the likelihood of being sentenced to death even after the race of the victim and other factors were held constant."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/29bar.html?scp=1&sq=death%20penalty%20racial%20disparity&st=cse

To me, this is clear evidence of institutional racism. This doesn't mean that anyone is "intending" to be racist. But it means that the system itself discriminates based on race. I don't think the label of "racism" should be rejected on the grounds that it is a "distraction." A distraction from what, exactly? The strategy of trying to get people to address racial disparities by pretending it's not a racial issue is a poor one. Policies which result in racial disparities are often motivated by racially tinted fears, are sustained by such fears, and reproduce social outcomes which lend those fears greater credence. We have to discuss this as a racial problem because it is a racial problem. You're never going to get anti-criminal-justice-reform conservatives to sign on to your proposals anyway, Ta-Nehisi. So why not rally the liberal base by labeling the problem as what it is: racism.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 1:38 PM

Great questions. I was just thinking about them this morning. I'm hoping this issue is a priority with an Obama administration and not so abstract where-is-the-marmalade-tomato-and-safety-pins lefty :) issue as with other admins. And how does that issue weigh as a GE issue? Can the racially inequitable law enforcement system be directly confronted as racist or do the sensitivities of fearful voters require a 'post-racial' treatment? Or is the 'post-racial' approach simply the correct approach. In other words, are we as a society mature enough yet?

Posted by donut | May 28, 2008 1:44 PM

I believe Kucinich, Gravel, and even Huckabee spoke a little about the problems of the criminal justice system during their runs for president.

Posted by KCinDC | May 28, 2008 1:52 PM

Don't concede this argument. The crim justice system is, in various ways, racist. Just because some of the assertions of those who claim the system is racist can be debunked does not mean that the system is not racist. In some ways, at some levels, it is. The Philly Inquirer had a series recently about summary offenses in the Philly suburbs, and it was plain as day that suburban police departments are using "disorderly conduct," "disturbing the peace," and similarly vague, in-the-eye-of-the-beholder charges to keep black men from Philly off their streets - one of them more or less admitted this openly. Then there's the data about the likelihood of blacks vs. whites being executed for similar crimes. Then there are all the incidents that don't even show up in stats, such as where white kids are given a warning and taken home to their parents, and black kids are taken to the juvenile detention center. Then there's the history of black suspects being beaten up by the cops and the non-history of like treatment of white suspects - and the fact that it's black cops administering some of the beatings may evince a lack of individual bias but does not disprove a systemic bias.

Sorry, but unless you can substantiate these assertions with evidence, they're worthless. I especially love your "all the incidents that don't even show up in stats" line. Let's see: You can't produce any actual data on these "incidents," but you just "know" they're happening.

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 1:55 PM

What did they say? What tact did they use?

Posted by donut | May 28, 2008 1:56 PM

Just because laws don't specifically say 'This only really applies to black people' doesn't mean thats not the net effect.

Hell, when was the last time a white guy got shot 50 times at his bachelor's party and a crooked judge decided that the cops involved were well within their rights to gun down an unarmed man? The mere fact that so many law enforcement agents are racist, and that judges give them such wide leeway, makes the entire system racist before you even get to juries and selective prosecution.

Posted by soullite | May 28, 2008 1:57 PM

Mixner: Here's the article the Navigator was citing.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/12418176.html

Took me about five seconds to find it based on the information provided. There are facts behind the claim of racism in criminal justice. It's not imaginary.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 2:03 PM

Mixner,
Can you even admit that the disproportionate number of blacks in prison is a social problem that needs to be addressed?

Posted by donut | May 28, 2008 2:03 PM

Blake Emerson,

To me, this is clear evidence of institutional racism.

You neglected to quote this part of the Times piece you linked to:

It has never been conclusively proven that, all else being equal, blacks are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites in the three decades since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Many experts, including some opposed to the death penalty, have said that evidence of that sort of direct discrimination is spotty and equivocal.

There are so many confounding factors that it is very difficult to isolate the effect, if any, of race on criminal justice matters.

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 2:04 PM

Mixner: Here's the article the Navigator was citing.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/12418176.html

Took me about five seconds to find it based on the information provided. There are facts behind the claim of racism in criminal justice. It's not imaginary.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 2:05 PM

"As Charlotte Allen has brilliantly chronicled in The Weekly Standard, a local civil rights activist crafted a narrative linking the attack to an unrelated incident months earlier, in which three white students hung two nooses from a schoolyard tree—a display that may or may not have been intended as a racial provocation."

WTF?

Posted by trouc | May 28, 2008 2:06 PM

Mixner:

What? The quote you lifted from the article is directly above the quote I pulled out. The whole point of the quote I used that the new study refutes, or at least calls into question, the view expressed in the quote you took out. Here's the whole passage:

"It has never been conclusively proven that, all else being equal, blacks are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites in the three decades since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Many experts, including some opposed to the death penalty, have said that evidence of that sort of direct discrimination is spotty and equivocal.

"But the author of the new study, Scott Phillips, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, found a robust relationship between race and the likelihood of being sentenced to death even after the race of the victim and other factors were held constant."

You see that "but" at the beginning of the second paragraph? That indicates that what follows undermines the claim made directly before it.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 2:13 PM

Mixner,
Can you even admit that the disproportionate number of blacks in prison is a social problem that needs to be addressed?
Posted by donut

Mixner may have a different answer, but IMO, the disproportionate number issue must be addressed by blacks themselves by reason that they commit a disproportionate number of serious crimes in the US, Caribbean, UK, Latin America, Canada, Arab countries.
In the USA, blacks commit the majority of armed robberies and murders. Despite being 13% of the population. They are the bulk of stranger on stranger rapists. A black man is 6 more times likely to commit murder than a white or hispanic. 38 times more likely to rape than an East Asian.

Prisons cannot fix disproportionate black criminality. Only blacks have that power. Prisons and penalties exacted by Arabs, Americans, Brits, French, Brazilians - may deter black thugs, keep them in check, even prevent future crime by jailing or executing them - but do not address the propensity for criminality.

Posted by chris ford | May 28, 2008 2:27 PM

The criminal justice system in this country is racist. I know because I was a white, middle-class person arrested and prosecuted for a (non-drug) felony. I was treated with kid gloves while the minorities around me were not.

Almost everyone went out of their way to be nice to me. The result was lenient, and the execution of the result was lenient.

It's easy to rationalize all this. I had a clean record, it was white-collar crime, and I am well educated, well-spoken, and polite. But why should white-collar crime be seen as less serious than, say, a non-violent drug crime? And surely my being well educated and well spoken are not independent of my socioeconomic status growing up. Nor, for that matter, my ability to socially interact with law enforcement and judicial personal in a polite, but non-servile, manner. Almost all, or all, of the things that someone might argue were non-racial in my example are related to race in this country, in one form or another.

Additionally, I had numerous encounters during adolescence and shortly thereafter with the police. The police have always been very nice to me. I was caught going 52MPH in a 25MPH school zone (after I had braked from 70MPH), the officer reduced the speed on the ticket by 25MPH to 27MPH, and then the judge threw out the ticket because he thought a 2MPH ticket was absurd. I was involved in a police chase and arrested. I was arrested for failing to pay a ticket. In all these various interactions I had with police, in small towns and big cities, they were always very nice to me. Usually lenient, and always respectful. I dare you to find a single black person in this country with my experiences on the wrong side of the law who can say the same.

I walked away from my felony experience absolutely convinced that there are two types of justice in this country: one for the "respectable (mostly white) people" and one for the "bad (mostly non-white) people". The system knows the difference by your color, where you live, and what kind of crimes you are accused of committing.

I'm a law abiding, responsible citizen today who is very well aware of the ways in which I was treated too nicely in the past. And yet, even if perhaps I was always treated too nicely, it was because there was an expectation that I could do better, and would do better. If I had been judged from the very beginning, by police officers and others, as inevitably going to be a career criminal, had I even spent time in a jail or prison, do you really think I would have gone the direction I have? And do you really think that the young black kids arrested for their first offense shoplifting are truly given a chance to do better? Or do we essentially tell them that they're destined to go to prison?

Don't tell me that criminal justice in this country isn't racist. I know it is.

Posted by Anon for a good reason | May 28, 2008 2:27 PM

Blake Emerson,

The fact that one new study found a robust relationship that was not found in most or all previous studies is not grounds for jumping to the conclusion that the relationship is real. Any one study may obviously be flawed or misleading for a variety of reasons. Your conclusions should be guided by the totality of the evidence, not cherry-picked pieces of evidence that support a pre-determined conclusion. The bottom line, as the piece says, is that the evidence of direct discrimination is "spotty and equivocal."

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 2:28 PM

The (Completely Insane) War On Drugs is essentially a racist civil war.

While I think you probably are correct about its being a racist civil war, the larger point is that it is completely insane.

The question I have often posed is "What do you think is going to happen with the "War on Drugs" when Drugs start fighting back"?

And the answer to that is now being played out in Mexico. Where the head of their FBI has just been assassinated. Where those police and military who have not been subverted are being targeted.

And, according to the NYT, American border guards now are being corrupted.

The pattern has become familiar: Customs officers wave in vehicles filled with illegal immigrants, drugs or other contraband. A Border Patrol agent acts as a scout for smugglers. Trusted officers fall prey to temptation and begin taking bribes.

Increased corruption is linked, in part, to tougher enforcement, driving smugglers to recruit federal employees as accomplices. It has grown so worrisome that job applicants will soon be subject to lie detector tests to ensure that they are not already working for smuggling organizations. In addition, homeland security officials have reconstituted an internal affairs unit at Customs and Border Protection, one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies, overseeing both border agents and customs officers.

Posted by Duncan Kinder | May 28, 2008 2:32 PM

Mixner:

"The bottom line, as the piece says, is that the evidence of direct discrimination is "spotty and equivocal."

No, that's not the bottom line, because the point of the article, as I pointed out above, is that this new study is a compelling refutation of the claim that evidence is spotty and equivocal. If you want to read the study, and find a particular qualm you with the methodology, which might make the results misleading, I'll be happy to discuss it. Otherwise, I don't see the point in arguing with someone who criticizes others for using no factual evidence, while using none him or herself.

Here's the study if you want to take a look:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20080429_sidebar_study.pdf

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 2:36 PM

Mixner,
Can you even admit that the disproportionate number of blacks in prison is a social problem that needs to be addressed?

The fact that you ask "Can you admit..." rather than "Do you agree...." is telling. I would be more inclined to believe that your own view were rational and fair-minded rather than emotional and clouded by preconceptions if you asked a neutral question rather than one framed to assume your conclusion.

I do think a significant racial imbalance in the prison population is a social problem. But I don't think by itself it is evidence of racism, and I'm not sure what the proper policy response, if any, should be. What do you propose?

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 2:39 PM

To be fair, the study in question does not say that there is "direct discrimination," where direct discrimination is defined as an intentional act. My argument is that a system can discriminate, even where there's no evidence that any one individual intentionally discriminated against anyone.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 2:48 PM

Blake Emerson,

No, that's not the bottom line, because the point of the article, as I pointed out above, is that this new study is a compelling refutation of the claim that evidence is spotty and equivocal.

One has to wonder if you read your own sources. Nowhere does the Times piece say or suggest that the new study is a "refutation" of the claim that the evidence for racial discrimination is spotty and equivocal, let alone a "compelling" one. That's your silly spin, not what the article says. In fact, the piece quotes the DA for the county in question, and a criminal justice professor, to suggest that the study's methodology was seriously flawed. In particular, the Texas professor states that the study "failed to take account of other significant factors, including the socioeconomic status of the victims."

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 2:50 PM

I do think a significant racial imbalance in the prison population is a social problem.

Mixner,
Thanks for agreeing with my preconception. The framing of the my question was indeed to suggest that perhaps your hyper-skeptical disregard of anecdotal and statistical evidence is not pure dyed-in-wool empiricism. I'm sure you have issues which get you emotional as well.

I'm all for personal responsibility and liability, but not to see racism as a factor is willful disbelief of the evidence. I don't have any policy proposals. But it's good to convince law enforcement to treat blacks more like poster Anon.

Posted by donut | May 28, 2008 3:01 PM

Mixner:

Good point, I didn't see that quote from the Professor. If socioeconomic status could account for the racial disparities wholly, that would seem to show that its not race but class that is causing the disparity.

I don't think the DA's office should be considered an unbiased source, however.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 3:11 PM

Mixner:

Good point, I didn't see that quote from the Professor. If socioeconomic status could account for the racial disparities wholly, that would seem to show that its not race but class that is causing the disparity.

I don't think the DA's office should be considered an unbiased source, however.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 3:11 PM

Mixner:

Good point, I didn't see that quote from the Professor. If socioeconomic status could account for the racial disparities wholly, that would seem to show that its not race but class that is causing the disparity. I wish the study had included that.

I don't think the DA's office should be considered an unbiased source, however.

Posted by Blake Emerson | May 28, 2008 3:12 PM

I do think a significant racial imbalance in the prison population is a social problem. But I don't think by itself it is evidence of racism, and I'm not sure what the proper policy response, if any, should be. What do you propose?

Legalize drugs.

Posted by mpowell | May 28, 2008 3:19 PM

donut,

The framing of the my question was indeed to suggest that perhaps your hyper-skeptical disregard of anecdotal and statistical evidence is not pure dyed-in-wool empiricism.

If "hyper-skeptical" means being unpersuaded by evidence that is, as the Times piece put it, "spotty and equivocal," then, yes, I'm "hyper-skeptical." I'm not sure why you think that's a bad thing.

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 3:33 PM

Legalize drugs.

What exactly do you mean by "legalize drugs?" It could mean anything from decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use, to a change in the law that would allow heroin and crack to be sold alongside alcohol in retail stores. I might support the former. I am very strongly opposed to the latter.

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 3:41 PM

I think the title of this entry asks the wrong question. The criminal justice system doesn't have to be racist for its effects to be racially biased; it just has to lack institutional protections against its individual agents acting on racial prejudice.

Which it does.

Posted by professordarkheart | May 28, 2008 4:07 PM

What exactly do you mean by "legalize drugs?" It could mean anything from decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use, to a change in the law that would allow heroin and crack to be sold alongside alcohol in retail stores. I might support the former. I am very strongly opposed to the latter.

Drug laws should be focused on addressing the actual needs our society faces. I think its pretty clear that the inner cities are poorly served by the current war on drugs. If you allowed crack to be sold at liqour stores, it might be worse for the rest of us, but I think if that was the best solution we could come up with, I think we would still owe to the poor black inner cities to give them a respite from the criminal gangs that currently control their streets.

Incidentally, however, perfectly good solutions do exist. If we can get past our, 'the beatings will continue until moral improves' attitude. First of all, drugs like marijuana and ecstasy should be legalized and controlled in the same way as tobacco and alcohol. I haven't seen any evidence that those drugs are any worse. But secondly, dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine should be available at government clinics. If addicts could get their fix at the clinic (but have to do the drugs there and then stay there for their high), we would almost certainly eliminate the street market for those drugs and would probably reduce the occurence of new addicts (where would they get the drugs?). Sure, it wouldn't do much to encourage addicts to quit, but given what those addicts are currently willing to suffer for their fix, I think we should acknowledge that is pretty much a lost cause. This way, at least, they might have a better chance of not completely destroying the rest of their life in the process.

The statistics suggest that a majority of criminal offenders are still not drug offenders. And MacDonald's article goes to quite some lengths to debunk the 'social reconstruction' theory of crime. But it is pretty obvious that there is still a strong positive feedback loop between crime & incarceration -> broken communities -> new criminals created. Not to mention the improved policing that might result if drug gangs were no longer a factor. Unless you think that blacks are genetically predisposed to commit crimes, which is blatantly racist, then you are obliged to believe that under the right social circumstances crime among blacks would drop. We can't say this is for the black community to resolve, because we collectively determine the conditions in which the black community exists. They can't unilaterally decide to legalize drugs. They don't even get to decide what kind of policing they receive. So to put it on them as some kind of group with a collective will is a load of crap. It's on all of us to create social conditions that don't breed criminals. There is no other solution.

Posted by mpowell | May 28, 2008 4:22 PM

First of all, drugs like marijuana and ecstasy should be legalized and controlled in the same way as tobacco and alcohol. I haven't seen any evidence that those drugs are any worse.

That doesn't mean it makes sense to treat those drugs the same way as we do alcohol and tobacco. If alcohol and tobacco had just been discovered, I very strongly doubt we would choose to make them available with as few restrictions as we do. We would probably control them much more strictly, given the huge amount of harm they cause. Alcohol and tobacco are so entrenched in our culture and economy due to their long history and widespread use that it would be very difficult at this point to impose much greater legal restrictions on them. That's not true of marijuana and ecstasy, which are much less important culturally and economically and much less widely used.

But secondly, dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine should be available at government clinics. If addicts could get their fix at the clinic (but have to do the drugs there and then stay there for their high), we would almost certainly eliminate the street market for those drugs and would probably reduce the occurence of new addicts (where would they get the drugs?).

Making heroin and cocaine available to existing addicts of those drugs under strict government control and supervision doesn't sound like "legalizing drugs" to me. I think the policy is worth considering, but as you acknowledge it would have the effect of perpetuating their addiction.

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 4:38 PM

That's not true of marijuana and ecstasy, which are much less important culturally and economically and much less widely used.

It's not true that marijuana is economically unimportant. I don't know about ecstasy.

Posted by live | May 28, 2008 4:45 PM

Mixner, you claim that tobacco and alcohol are more widely used than marijuana. That's true at the moment, but half of all adults in this country have smoked pot at least once. Tobacco consumption is dropping like a rock. Pretty soon they'll pass each other. What then? Can we legalize pot then?

"Decriminalization" would certainly be better than what we have. It's better to force treatment on someone than to put them in jail. But without full legalization, you'd still have thriving black markets and the crime that goes with them, and you'd still be imprisoning unacceptably high numbers of people.

Posted by too many steves | May 28, 2008 4:48 PM

Does our drug policy make sense?

Well, 15 years ago the American Public Health Association reviewed and discussed the literature, and concluded that public health would be improved if marijuana and cocaine were legalized. Kaiser Permanente did a 20-year longitudinal study of thousands of their patients and found that there was no difference in the health status of regular marijuana smokers and non-smokers. Every major commission that has studied marijuana has concluded that more problems are caused by prohibition than by legalization.

In short, the evidence is absolutely overwhelming that in every dimension our society would be improved by legalizing pot.

This is surely the working definition of institutional racism- without any individual actually exhibiting overt racism, the process and the agencies of government end up arresting, convicting, and imprisoning black people way out of proportion to their share of the population.

And it's costing us big bucks, which could, I suppose, be evidence of color-blind corruption and connivance.

At the bottom line the 'War on Drugs' is a form of social sickness inflicting an entire nation, just as Henry Ford and Hitler used the German prejudice against the Jews to sicken the German nation. We'll be lucky if we can recover from our addiction to prohibition before we shoot ourselves somewhere other than in our foot.

Posted by serial catowner | May 28, 2008 4:50 PM

Kathy "took Jim Webb apart" about as well as Pee Wee Herman took that Sarasota smut theater apart. A few drippy remarks do not make an evisceration. The same clueless, feckless, ziocon-lite "leftists" who have conniption fits over mean ol' macho man Chris Matthews will not count for a whit when Obama chooses his VP. Let them sit home with their curds and whey when he picks Jim Webb. The ticket will win so let them cry if they want to.

Posted by Trevor | May 28, 2008 5:55 PM

Mixner: "There are so many confounding factors that it is very difficult to isolate the effect, if any, of race on criminal justice matters."

Here he comes again!

Don't waste your time on this troll. His specialty here is parsing words and arguing vague generalities and blunt assertions with nothing whatever to back them up.

His chief argument here in the past was for the value of torture - if that gives you any idea where he's coming from.

Fucking troll.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 28, 2008 6:33 PM

It's not true that marijuana is economically unimportant.

The total estimated value of marijuana produced in the United States is not a meaningful measure of its importance to the U.S. economy. Even if we accept the highly dubious estimate from that "study" (about $36 billion), it is only a tiny fraction of GDP (about 0.3%) and, unlike tobacco and alcohol, has virtually no relevance to the agricultural, manufacturing and retail sectors of our economy.

Mixner, you claim that tobacco and alcohol are more widely used than marijuana. That's true at the moment, but half of all adults in this country have smoked pot at least once. Tobacco consumption is dropping like a rock. Pretty soon they'll pass each other.

Gee, "at least once," you say. The number of people who have had a puff on a joint, maybe just once in college 20 years ago, isn't a terribly meaningful measure of actual usage. In 2005, almost 400 billion (tobacco) cigarettes were sold in the United States. That's more than 1,000 cigarettes for every man, woman and child in the country. How many joints were sold?

And, of course, even though it is highly unlikely that tobacco will be prohibited in this country in the near-term future in ways similar to the prohibition on marijuana, the long-term trend has been to subject tobacco use and sales to increasing restriction and regulation. Future legislation granting the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco seems quite plausible, and if that happens you can expect even more restrictions on tobacco.

"Decriminalization" would certainly be better than what we have. It's better to force treatment on someone than to put them in jail. But without full legalization, you'd still have thriving black markets and the crime that goes with them, and you'd still be imprisoning unacceptably high numbers of people.

Decriminalization of what? Possession of small amounts of some drugs for personal use? All drugs? Possession of large amounts? Dealing? Manufacturing? Trafficking? Sale on demand in large numbers of retail outlets (as in tobacco and alcohol sales)? All of the above? Or what? What kind of legal regime regarding drugs are you advocating, exactly?

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 6:37 PM

Well, 15 years ago the American Public Health Association reviewed and discussed the literature, and concluded that public health would be improved if marijuana and cocaine were legalized.

No, the APHA passed a resolution urging the government merely to "make cannabis available as a legal medicine where shown to be safe and effective." In other words, it supports "medical marijuana." It does not favor a broader decriminalization of the possession or sale of marijuana for recreational or other non-medical uses, let alone cocaine.

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 6:47 PM

Sorry, Mixner, you are totally flat-ass 100% wrong. And no, I'm not going to look it up for you because you are a troll. Deal.

The APHA reviewed all of the published studies, looked at the broad context, which includes families broken up by imprisonment, diseases transmitted by needles, and of course the loss of productivity from the people imprisoned, reviewed the drug-taking proclivities of the average American, along with the harm likely to result from the use of any specific drug, and concluded that legalizing marijuana and cocaine would improve our public health.

Posted by serial catowner | May 28, 2008 7:54 PM

catowner,

You're not going to "look it up" because you can't. Your APHA claim is just utterly, completely, 100% FALSE.

You're a reliable source of bullshit. Your posts are always full of "facts" you have simply made up out of thin air.

Posted by Mixner | May 28, 2008 8:04 PM

Look who's talking - the troll who never has ANY facts to cite whatsoever, made up or otherwise.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 29, 2008 2:30 AM

Mixner,

You've completely lost the plot. Your argument is the equivalent of a mathematician arguing that because any conceivable number can be divided by two that zero doesn't exist.

While the people currently incarcerated were very likely to have been involved in the criminal enterprise for which they were charged, the criminal justice system has very little to do with the commission of crime and much more to do its prosecution

Any number of us, commit multiple crimes daily, whether that be jaywalking, rolling through a stop sign, failing to go back to the grocery store for something in your cart that wasn't rung up, or sneaking the odd puff or two on a joint. But yet most of these deeds go by on a daily basis without punishment. Why, because the deeds mentioned were done without having been witnessed by the authorities or because the authorities looked the other way. For example, I'm guessing that if police started kicking in doors in Beverly Hills, they'd find a lot of drugs but not a lot of Black People. Now despite the evidence of Black drug users in Beverly Hills, I'd consider that to be a bit misleading if I used that as evidence that Black people don't do drugs or even worse -- that all drug users are white.

Continuing down that train of thought, if I passed a law that doubled the prison time for people named McNulty, It wouldn't be long before "McNulty's" were represented in the prison system in higher proportions than the general populace. How many Black McNulty's do you know?

So you can deny that punishing crack offenders more harshly than powdered cocaine offenders is justifiable by the level of violence / unrest associated with crack offenders. However, until meth users (mostly white) are more harshly punished than other drug users because of the documented violence associated with meth distribution, the possibility that their labs tend to explode and because the toxic waste they leave is hazardous to surrounding inhabitants, the crack policy remains an inherently (but not explicitly) racist policy.

Furthermore, until white kids and adults in the suburbs are stopped and frisked without provocation at the same rates that they frisk black kids and adults for the crime of being, you can roll up your opinion and smoke it, because it's so off base that I hate to have shamed myself in this attempt to refute it.

Posted by Gotta Ask Why | May 29, 2008 10:02 AM

Mixner wrote:

The total estimated value of marijuana produced in the United States is not a meaningful measure of its importance to the U.S. economy. Even if we accept the highly dubious estimate from that "study" (about $36 billion), it is only a tiny fraction of GDP (about 0.3%) and, unlike tobacco and alcohol, has virtually no relevance to the agricultural, manufacturing and retail sectors of our economy.

Very large numbers of people grow, process, sell, buy, and use it, and a lot of money changes hands. The only way you can deny that that constitutes significant economic activity is if you define economic importance so as to exclude anything illegal. But then you are using pot's supposedly unimportant economic status to argue it should be kept illegal, while simultaneously using the fact that it's illegal to define it as economically unimportant. The technical term for this kind of reasoning is "shitty."

Also, the deployment of quotation marks does not lend any logical force to your lame attempt to dismiss the study without engaging it.

Posted by live | May 29, 2008 12:04 PM

And, of course, even though it is highly unlikely that tobacco will be prohibited in this country in the near-term future in ways similar to the prohibition on marijuana, the long-term trend has been to subject tobacco use and sales to increasing restriction and regulation. Future legislation granting the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco seems quite plausible, and if that happens you can expect even more restrictions on tobacco.

I don't care how you do it, but the goal of drug laws should be to eliminate the black market for drugs because that market is doing far more damage to our society than the drugs themselves. It is abundantly clear that our current approach has failed and will always fail. Complete legalization would obviously work. But there are many intermediate solutions that we could try out that would probably also work while still allowing us to substantially limit the availability of these drugs. I think our society owes the inner cities an enormous debt due to the fact that these things have been apparent for nearly 20 years and we still haven't done anything to try a different solution. As I said before, it is contigent on us to create social conditions that discourage the creation of criminals. There is nothing genetically inherent to blacks that cause them to become criminals. It's the social conditions that we force them to live in that lead to that result.

Posted by mpowell | May 29, 2008 12:37 PM

If David Paterson can pardon Slick Rick, I'm hoping that Obama will posthumously clear O.D.B.'s criminal record.

Posted by Nordy | May 29, 2008 12:49 PM

Very large numbers of people grow, process, sell, buy, and use it, and a lot of money changes hands.

Er, did you even read the text of mine you just quoted? Even the estimate of $36 billion is a tiny fraction of GDP. If marijuana completely disappeared from the United States, the impact on the U.S. economy would be negligible. It simply isn't remotely comparable to the economic significance of tobacco and alcohol. That is one reason why it doesn't make sense to argue that we should treat marijuana in a similar way to tobacco and alcohol.

Posted by Mixner | May 29, 2008 2:05 PM

mpowell,

I don't care how you do it, but the goal of drug laws should be to eliminate the black market for drugs because that market is doing far more damage to our society than the drugs themselves.

First, you offer absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Like most proponents of "legalization" you seem to hold it as an article of faith rather than a reasoned conclusion from evidence. But more importantly, the relevant question is not whether the black market for drugs causes more harm than the drugs themselves, but whether "legalization" would do more good than harm. The relevant question with respect to the harm caused by "the drugs themselves" is not the amount of harm they cause now, but the amount of harm they would cause under a policy of "legalization," which would produce a dramatic increase in the rates of drug use, drug addiction and consequent social problems.

Complete legalization would obviously work.

"Complete legalization." So I assume this means you think people should be free to produce, distribute, sell, buy and use drugs with little legal restriction or regulation (comparable to the way we treat tobacco or alcohol). You seriously believe, do you, that if every grocery store had a "hard drugs" aisle where people could buy unlimited quantities of heroin, cocaine, meth, ecstasy, marijuana or whatever else there was a demand for, that would "obviously work," do you? I think such a policy would be insane. Drug use, drug addiction and drug-related social pathologies would increase dramatically.

Posted by Mixner | May 29, 2008 2:25 PM

Jan 14, 2007

A new report released today by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) challenges the assumption that black and brown children are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system simply because they commit more crime.

"And Justice for Some: Differential Treatment of Youth of Color in the Justice System," describes in painstaking detail why, in far greater proportion than whites, youths of color enter the criminal justice system. NCCD researchers found differential treatment at every step of the criminal justice process.

For instance, youths of color are more likely to be picked up and detained by police.

Among the finding from the NCCD report:

• African-American youths are 4.5 times more likely, and Latinos 2.3 times more likely, than white youths to be detained for identical offenses.

• About half of white teenagers arrested on a drug charge go home without being formally charged and drawn into the system. Only a quarter of black teens arrested on drug charges catch a similar break.

• When charges are filed, white youths are more likely to be placed on probation while black youth are more likely to get locked up.

Unequal treatment didn't stop upon entry into the juvenile justice system. NCCD researchers found that African-American youths are more likely than whites to be charged, tried, and incarcerated as adults.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=c97ba82fe0ccca3aca560aa195b6260a

Posted by dj spellchecka | May 29, 2008 5:19 PM

spellcheck,

You ought to take a look at the study you mention. In the Executive Summary, the authors explicitly reject the conclusion that the differential treatment can be attributed to "racial bias in the justice system." They say the causes of the differential treatment are unclear, and suggest a number of possibilities.

Posted by Mixner | May 29, 2008 5:39 PM