In case you’re in need of some more quality internet reading, I recommend heading over to the ACLU’s Blog of Rights. The entire blog is great but a specific piece caught my eye today for two reasons. First, it deals with an issue that is extremely important, racially-biased enforcement of drug laws. Second, it deals with that issue specifically in Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland for you not in the Ohio know) - 20 minutes from where I am now and where I grew up.

The blog entry looks at a report that came out recently called “Selective Enforcement of Drug Laws in Cuyahoga County, Ohio: A Report on the Racial Effects of Geographic Disparities in Arrest Patterns.” The report was published in January by Citizens for a Safe & Fair Cleveland (CSFC) and is by Mona Lynch, Ph.D.

A horrifying result of the report lies in the fact below:

In 2005, 81 percent of all county drug arrests involved black people, despite the fact that only 27 percent of country residents are African-American. [ACLU]

Also revealed in the report is the significant fact that judges in non-white areas of Cuyahoga County are more likely to charge low-level drug law violations as felonies, whereas the judges in the white areas give the same offense the charge of a misdemeanor.

This is of course all quite disgusting but the report signifies that people are beginning to get fed up with such inequalities and are voicing those opinions. And that of course is great! I can only hope that people in Cleveland read the report or at least the ACLU’s condensed version of the information in it.
takepart and get involved with Citizens for a Safe and Fair Cleveland (or research similar organizations in your own area)

Read on:

• Disparate Times
• ACLU Ohio
• Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States