War on Drugs
Arrests from the “War on Drugs” show the disparity between whites and Blacks. According to The Washington Post, “one in five Black Americans would spend time behind bars due to drug laws out of 1.5 million people arrested annually.” According to the Human Rights Watch, African-Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates two to 11 times higher than the rate for whites. Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, stated in May 2009 congressional testimony that “African-Americans, who are 13 percent of the population and 14 percent of drug users, are not only 37 percent of the people arrested for drugs but 56 percent of the people in state prisons for drug offenses.”
Stop and Frisk
The police stop Blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than whites. The stop-and-frisk policy was created to prevent dangerous crime, but it has been used in racial profiling. In New York City, people of color make up about half of the population, but 80 percent of the New York Police Department stops were of Blacks and Latinos. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, “in the first half of 2014, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 27,527 times; 22,682 were totally innocent (82 percent) and 14,549 were Black (53 percent).”
