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“ Racial Disparities: Crafting Solutions” 2011 Minnesota Justice Forum Reducing Racial Disparities. Michael Tonry. Reducing Racial Disparities. 1. Radically Reduce Prison Population. 2. Shift Drug Policy Emphasis from Street-level Enforcement to Prevention, Treatment, and Tolerance.
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“Racial Disparities: Crafting Solutions”2011 Minnesota Justice ForumReducing Racial Disparities Michael Tonry
Reducing Racial Disparities 1. Radically Reduce Prison Population. 2. Shift Drug Policy Emphasis from Street-level Enforcement to Prevention, Treatment, and Tolerance. 3. Reduce Racial Profiling by the Police. 4. Reduce Weight of Criminal History in Sentencing Guidelines.
Table 2. Hypothetical Reductions in Imprisonment, Effects of Racial Make-up Source: Tonry and Melewski 2008, table 5
Figure 1. Percentages of State and federal prisoners, by race, 1950-2008. Sources: for 1950—80: Cahalan (1986); for 1980—2008: BJS, “Prisoners,” various years.
Figure 2. Incarceration, state and federal prisons, local jails, per 100,000, by race, 1950-2008 Sources: BJS (1984, 1990; “Jail Inmates,” various years; “Prisoners,” various years; “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear,” various years); Cahalan (1986); Gilliard and Beck (1996).
Table 3A. Percentage of Drug Use, by Race, 2005-06: Alcohol, All Illicit Drugs
Figure 4. Total arrests for drug offenses, by race, 1978–2006 . Sources: BJS Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/), various years.
Figure 5. Illicit drug sales among youths aged 12 – 17, by race, 2001–2008. Source: Office of Applied Studies, National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Various years.
Figure 6. Juvenile Arrest Rate for Drug Offenses, by Race, 1965-2000 Source: Blumstein (1993), Blumstein and Wallman (2006)
Figure 7. The Price of Cocaine 1981 – 2007 Source: Caulkins and Reuter 2010, figure 3, based on data from Office of National Drug Control Policy 2008.
Reducing Racial Disparities • 1. Radically Reduce Prison Population. • 2. Shift Drug Policy Emphasis from Street-level Enforcement to Prevention, Treatment, and Tolerance. • 3. Reduce Racial Profiling by the Police. • 4. Reduce Weight of Criminal History in Sentencing Guidelines.
THE LESSON: EVEN IF POLICE MAKE ARRESTS OR FIND CONTRABAND AT EQUAL RATES, MANY MORE BLACK AND HISPANIC PEOPLE ARE ARRESTED.
Table 6 – What is the most important reason for the much higher Black recommended-prison rate? [Answer: criminal history] Recommended prison in all cases, based on high offense severity alone – this zone of the grid accounted for 20% of the higher Black recommended-prison rate in 2000 thru 2009 Recommended prison only if a mandatory minimum applies (sometimes based on criminal history) – this zone accoun- ted for 17% of the higher Black recomd- prison rate, 2000-09 Recommended prison only at higher criminal history scores – this zone accounted for 63% of the higher Black recomm’d- prison rate 2000-09