NYC's Staggering Arrest Rate for Pot Achieved By Police Deception and Scams

New York City has been the pot-bust capital of the
world for a decade, since Rudolph Giuliani's decision
to make public toking a top police priority. A new
study sponsored by the New York Civil Liberties Union
says the city's cannabis crackdown is both racist and
fraudulent.

New York police have arrested almost 400,000 people
for misdemeanor marijuana possession in the last
decade. Last year, there were 39,700 such arrests. The
vast majority of those seized have been black and
Latino men, most under 25. And according to the NYCLU
study, released last week, thousands of them are the
victims of police scams, falsely charged with
possession of marijuana "burning or open to public
view."

"We are confident in estimating that about two-thirds
to three-quarters of the people arrested were not
smoking marijuana," the study says. "Usually they were
doing their utmost to keep their marijuana concealed,
generally deep inside their clothing." The authors,
sociologist Harry Levine of Queens College and
activist Deborah Peterson-Small of the organization
Break The Chains, say that conclusion is "based on the
experience of legal aid and public-defender attorneys
who have handled thousands of these cases, along with
that of the police officers and arrestees we
interviewed."

New York State decriminalized marijuana in 1977. That
reduced possession of less than 25 grams is a
violation, carrying a $100 fine and no criminal
record. But smoking or possession in public is a
misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months in jail.
So in order to get around the constitutional
restrictions on searches and find a valid reason to
make an arrest, police have to use deception.

A typical ruse is for police to stop someone near a
suspected marijuana-sales site and tell them something
along the lines of "We saw you coming out of the weed
spot. If you have anything on you that you're not
supposed to have, give it to me and all I'll give you
is a ticket." If the suspect falls for the ruse and
hands over his marijuana, he is then arrested for
displaying it in public view. Though most people
charged with misdemeanor pot possession do not receive
jail sentences, they often have to spend up to 24
hours in jail before arraignment, and they acquire a
permanent arrest record.

Police and defenders of the crackdown say that making
large numbers of arrests for minor offenses has
reduced major crimes. Other benefits include that it's
an easy way for police supervisors to show their
precincts' productivity, it's an easy way for
individual officers to get overtime-rookie New York
cops get paid only $25,000 a year, so "collars for
dollars" augment that -- and it keeps a reserve of
officers occupied.

Peterson-Small states bluntly that the crackdown is
"racist," a legacy of the Giuliani principles that "we
will tame New York by bringing the black and brown
people under control" and "no offense is too petty."
Of the people arrested for misdemeanor pot possession
from 1997 through 2006, five out of six were black or
Latino, in a city that is almost half white and Asian.
Nine out of ten were male, and most were aged 16 to
25. And over the years, the focus has shifted from
Midtown Manhattan and Greenwich Village to outlying
black and Latino areas. The police precincts in upper
Manhattan's Washington Heights, the west Bronx,
Jamaica and St. Albans in southeastern Queens, and the
"Black Brooklyn" neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Brownsville, and East New York regularly turn in more
than 1,000 petty pot busts a year each. Though there
is no evidence that black New Yorkers smoke more pot
than white ones -- nationally, the rate of use among
young adults is slightly higher for whites, at least
according to government surveys -- the city's
marijuana-arrest rate for blacks is more than five
times what it is for whites.

Another worry is that the arrests tag thousands of
young black and Latino men as criminals. The study
terms the crackdown "Head Start for prison and
unemployment." The Head Start preschool program, it
notes, intends to "familiarize and socialize young
children in the routines and expectations of school
systems"; the marijuana-arrest program works to
"familiarize, socialize, and prepare disadvantaged
black and Latino teenagers and young adults from poor
neighborhoods for the routines and expectations of the
police, court, jail, and prison system."

The study also calls the policy a waste of money -- at
an estimated $1,500 to $2,500 per arrest, it cost the
city $60 to $100 million last year, at a time when
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is slashing the city budget
and closing libraries on weekends. Peterson-Small adds
that it violates the spirit of the state's
decriminalization law. The ban on public smoking, she
says, was originally intended to apply only to people
creating a public nuisance, not to someone lighting up
discreetly "in the alley behind a jazz club."

Though the city's cannabis crackdown is Rudolph
Giuliani's legacy, Bloomberg has continued it.
Bloomberg has a reputation as a moderate, as less
racist and draconian than Giuliani, and he famously
declared "You bet I did -- and I enjoyed it" when
asked if he had ever smoked pot. But in his first six
years in office, more people have been arrested for
misdemeanor possession than in Giuliani's entire
eight-year regime.

Steven Wishnia is the author of "Exit 25 Utopia," "The
Cannabis Companion" and "Invincible Coney Island." He
lives in New York.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights
reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/84515/ for Pot Achieved
By Police Deception and Scams
By Steven Wishnia, AlterNet
Posted on May 9, 2008, Printed on May 9, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/84515/

New York City has been the pot-bust capital of the
world for a decade, since Rudolph Giuliani's decision
to make public toking a top police priority. A new
study sponsored by the New York Civil Liberties Union
says the city's cannabis crackdown is both racist and
fraudulent.

New York police have arrested almost 400,000 people
for misdemeanor marijuana possession in the last
decade. Last year, there were 39,700 such arrests. The
vast majority of those seized have been black and
Latino men, most under 25. And according to the NYCLU
study, released last week, thousands of them are the
victims of police scams, falsely charged with
possession of marijuana "burning or open to public
view."

"We are confident in estimating that about two-thirds
to three-quarters of the people arrested were not
smoking marijuana," the study says. "Usually they were
doing their utmost to keep their marijuana concealed,
generally deep inside their clothing." The authors,
sociologist Harry Levine of Queens College and
activist Deborah Peterson-Small of the organization
Break The Chains, say that conclusion is "based on the
experience of legal aid and public-defender attorneys
who have handled thousands of these cases, along with
that of the police officers and arrestees we
interviewed."

New York State decriminalized marijuana in 1977. That
reduced possession of less than 25 grams is a
violation, carrying a $100 fine and no criminal
record. But smoking or possession in public is a
misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months in jail.
So in order to get around the constitutional
restrictions on searches and find a valid reason to
make an arrest, police have to use deception.

A typical ruse is for police to stop someone near a
suspected marijuana-sales site and tell them something
along the lines of "We saw you coming out of the weed
spot. If you have anything on you that you're not
supposed to have, give it to me and all I'll give you
is a ticket." If the suspect falls for the ruse and
hands over his marijuana, he is then arrested for
displaying it in public view. Though most people
charged with misdemeanor pot possession do not receive
jail sentences, they often have to spend up to 24
hours in jail before arraignment, and they acquire a
permanent arrest record.

Police and defenders of the crackdown say that making
large numbers of arrests for minor offenses has
reduced major crimes. Other benefits include that it's
an easy way for police supervisors to show their
precincts' productivity, it's an easy way for
individual officers to get overtime-rookie New York
cops get paid only $25,000 a year, so "collars for
dollars" augment that -- and it keeps a reserve of
officers occupied.

Peterson-Small states bluntly that the crackdown is
"racist," a legacy of the Giuliani principles that "we
will tame New York by bringing the black and brown
people under control" and "no offense is too petty."
Of the people arrested for misdemeanor pot possession
from 1997 through 2006, five out of six were black or
Latino, in a city that is almost half white and Asian.
Nine out of ten were male, and most were aged 16 to
25. And over the years, the focus has shifted from
Midtown Manhattan and Greenwich Village to outlying
black and Latino areas. The police precincts in upper
Manhattan's Washington Heights, the west Bronx,
Jamaica and St. Albans in southeastern Queens, and the
"Black Brooklyn" neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Brownsville, and East New York regularly turn in more
than 1,000 petty pot busts a year each. Though there
is no evidence that black New Yorkers smoke more pot
than white ones -- nationally, the rate of use among
young adults is slightly higher for whites, at least
according to government surveys -- the city's
marijuana-arrest rate for blacks is more than five
times what it is for whites.

Another worry is that the arrests tag thousands of
young black and Latino men as criminals. The study
terms the crackdown "Head Start for prison and
unemployment." The Head Start preschool program, it
notes, intends to "familiarize and socialize young
children in the routines and expectations of school
systems"; the marijuana-arrest program works to
"familiarize, socialize, and prepare disadvantaged
black and Latino teenagers and young adults from poor
neighborhoods for the routines and expectations of the
police, court, jail, and prison system."

The study also calls the policy a waste of money -- at
an estimated $1,500 to $2,500 per arrest, it cost the
city $60 to $100 million last year, at a time when
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is slashing the city budget
and closing libraries on weekends. Peterson-Small adds
that it violates the spirit of the state's
decriminalization law. The ban on public smoking, she
says, was originally intended to apply only to people
creating a public nuisance, not to someone lighting up
discreetly "in the alley behind a jazz club."

Though the city's cannabis crackdown is Rudolph
Giuliani's legacy, Bloomberg has continued it.
Bloomberg has a reputation as a moderate, as less
racist and draconian than Giuliani, and he famously
declared "You bet I did -- and I enjoyed it" when
asked if he had ever smoked pot. But in his first six
years in office, more people have been arrested for
misdemeanor possession than in Giuliani's entire
eight-year regime.

Steven Wishnia is the author of "Exit 25 Utopia," "The
Cannabis Companion" and "Invincible Coney Island." He
lives in New York.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights
reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/84515/
NYC's Staggering Arrest Rate for Pot Achieved By
Police Deception and Scams
By Steven Wishnia, AlterNet
Posted on May 9, 2008, Printed on May 9, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/84515/