Arresting people for assaults, beatings and robberies doesn't bring money back to police departments, but drug cases do in a couple of ways. First, police departments across the country compete for a pool of federal anti-drug grants. The more arrests and drug seizures a department can claim, the stronger its application for those grants.
"The availability of huge federal anti-drug grants incentivizes departments to pay for SWAT team armor and weapons, and leads our police officers to abandon real crime victims in our communities in favor of ratcheting up their drug arrest stats," said former Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing. Downing is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an advocacy group of cops and prosecutors who are calling for an end to the drug war.
"When our cops are focused on executing large-scale, constitutionally questionable raids at the slightest hint that a small-time pot dealer is at work, real police work preventing and investigating crimes like robberies and rapes falls by the wayside," Downing said.
And this problem is on the rise all over the country. Last year, police in New York City arrested around 50,000 people for marijuana possession. Pot has been decriminalized in New York since 1977, but displaying the drug in public is still a crime. So police officers stop people who look "suspicious," frisk them, ask them to empty their pockets, then arrest them if they pull out a joint or a small amount of marijuana. They're tricked into breaking the law. According to a report from Queens College sociologist Harry Levine, there were 33,775 such arrests from 1981 to 1995. Between 1996 and 2010 there were 536,322.
Not to cause less focus on the battery, but I'm sure people know how I feel on the drug war that's been going on. I recall asset forfeiture being used to lock up people for one small joint. Basically, the article and the post show the problems of law enforcement ignoring crimes to help the community to go after those that smoke marijuana. We've had over 500K arrests in the last 2 decades thanks to the War on Drugs, and the incentive for arresting low level drug dealers is having them pay for their arrests and probation.
What's amazing is how no one has seen these laws and the bad incentives this induces on a community. The story shows one woman's fight for two years by fighting the police to investigate her assault. She had the names of the people that did it, investigating on her own when the police wouldn't do so.
Honestly, what kind of world do we live in when the NYPD can't protect the people they're supposed to serve?
Marc v4.0
11-29-2011 02:09 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jagos
(Post 1170558)
Honestly, what kind of world do we live in when the NYPD can't protect the people they're supposed to serve?
The one we created
Thadius
11-29-2011 03:29 AM
I am so fucking tempted to reply with an ironic Watchmen picture. Maybe with Impact text over it.
Then I remember I hate the drug war and the feeling passes.
I could get into a long tirade about this, but essentially, my take on it is simple:
Until the government stops throwing money at what they perceive to be a problem to make it go away, we will continue to have a completely different problem.
Fifthfiend
11-29-2011 03:53 PM
In addition to the fine points made by Jagos I'd add that this is one of the things that guarantees that the 'drug war' will go on forever because police departments are addicted to the money it allows them to suck out of the black market.
And yeah this is a real good article as it puts into more concrete form something I've thought for a long time being how one major consequence of the drug war seems to be the way that police don't give a shit about piddling little things like rape or assault or theft or any crime that affects actual human beings.
shiney
11-29-2011 04:05 PM
It also rewards baser instincts of aggression and creates creeping militarization. Basically it turns our cops into enforcers of a specific worldview than defenders of public safety.
Aerozord
11-29-2011 04:32 PM
one quote summed up the real problem to me rather well, was something like
"if I could make this pen for ten cents, and sell it for 100 times as much, you'd never be able to stop me" The profit margins are so massive for drugs that not only do the suppliers have a fortune to fight back with, but are making so much money nothing could deter them from continuing.
Reasons like that are why we ended prohibition. Easier to regulate something when its out in the open
Seil
11-30-2011 11:45 AM
But then there's the problems of regulation to deal with. Every politician still got the "Pot is bad!" view going on. My thoughts on this (and I'm usually wrong and get in trouble when posting in a serious thread)
It will only be allowed to be sold in specific shops with specific conditions that won't really stop people from booting for younger kids, causing the media to wig out.
The cigarette companies will jump on the bandwagon, potentially putting chemical additives in, and we'll have people going in to buy something potentially more harmful than what we have now.
A reshuffling of government priorities, as everyone will have to go back on their word, talking about the billions they put into anti-pot propaganda, the people who've been fined or jailed or otherwise criminalized for pot use will appeal to have the now-legal "offense" stricken from their records.
Sifright
11-30-2011 12:10 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seil
(Post 1170772)
[*] A reshuffling of government priorities, as everyone will have to go back on their word, talking about the billions they put into anti-pot propaganda, the people who've been fined or jailed or otherwise criminalized for pot use will appeal to have the now-legal "offense" stricken from their records.[/list]
This would be a bad thing for those who were imprisoned for drug use how?
Seil
11-30-2011 12:15 PM
It was included to put more egg on the face of the government, not because it's a problem that they'd (hopefully) go free.
shiney
11-30-2011 01:14 PM
If it's legalized, then people can just grow it, rather than worry about additives and stuff.
