Living in New York City, the ground level efforts of the War on Drugs; strikes close to home. Policies such as the NYPDS, “stop and frisk” program, attempts to curb drug possession and usage. According to statistics garnered by the Drug Policy Alliance, the majority of drug users are white men. However, Black and Hispanic citizens are being arrested in much higher numbers. In the link below, data on Stop and Frisk, was spatially expressed by police prescient. In more ethnically diverse areas, we see unproportionate numbers in Hispanic and black stops as opposed to whites.
“The borders of the map below represent NYPD precincts throughout New York City. To see the summary statistics for the year 2011, click on any precinct and read the pop-up window or visit the Precinct’s page linked below the map.”
The video below highlights just one story from the NYPDS program, and shows us just how harassing and unjust the experience is for those affected. A police presence is undoubtedly necessary in a community, but what were seeing here is a breech of personal liberties that are being enforced the policing. It’s a very heavy handed approach that does more harm than good in communities. What is building up is an “us vs. them” system, which hasn’t need be the case. With a mantra of protect and serve being on the back burner, and a mantra of quotas and inflated statistics being the new.
And remember:
The cost of Marijuana possession arrest has cost the city of New York 75 Million dollar a year, according to the Drug Policy Alliance report. A single Marijuana possession arrest could cost the city $1,000 to $2,000 and up, in expenses. It’s estimated that from 1997 to 2010, New York Police Department has made 536,000 for marijuana possession alone, which the total expense has cost the city from $500 million to over $1 billion dollar. In addition the impact of marijuana arrest has impacted human and consequences of the arrestee. For example, that arrest will remain on the person criminal record and could affect him or her future employment, schools, credit, housing and voting rights. The report also found that black has 7 times more likely to get arrest for marijuana uses than white and Latinos are four times more likely to get arrest.
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Cocaine Vs Crack
The sentence disparity between cocaine and crack. Under federal law since the 1980s, crack is sentence 100 times harsher than cocaine powder even though scientist has proven both has the same potency. It wasn’t until 2010 where crack sentence is reduce to 18:1 ratio of cocaine. Many believe this unjust law was passed in order to target of black and minority community because they are the group who tend to be involve possession and sale of crack. Example use by the drug policy.org to amplified the unfairness of the sentencing is ” Possession of 28 grams of crack cocaine yields a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first offense; it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to prompt the same sentence
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