Racialized leniency toward the opioid crisis nonetheless reduced Black drug arrests

Evidence

What those who view American drug policy through a racialized lens tend to miss is the fact that, in the current historical moment, the White proportion of drug arrests has increased due to a sharp reduction in the number of African Americans arrested—not because the number or rate of White arrests has increased significantly. Stated differently, if law enforcement emphasis on drug offending had remained at year 2000 levels, the opioid crisis would have led to the number and rate of Whites arrested for drug offenses increasing markedly. The recent reduction in law enforcement emphasis on drug crimes prevented that from occurring. Moreover, the de-emphasis on drug offending led to steep reductions in the number and rate of African Americans being apprehended for drug crimes. Thus, while the political response to the current opioid crisis may be tainted with racial bias in the form of leniency toward a drug problem widely perceived to disproportionately affect Whites, Black Americans have benefited from the reduced criminal justice emphasis on drug offenses. This is evident in the sharp reductions in the number and rate of drug arrests and prison admissions among African Americans. Yet, despite the recent sharp reduction in African American drug arrests and prison admissions, African Americans’ rates of arrest are twice and thrice as high as those of Whites for drug possession and drug distribution, respectively. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1089

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Complicates both ‘racial bias drives all drug policy’ and ‘reduced enforcement helps no one’: a bias-motivated policy shift yielded measurable benefit to the group it neglected, while racial disparity in arrest rates paradoxically persists.
• SEED: Essay angle: unintended beneficiaries of racist policymaking — when a policy change driven by majority-group favoritism still improves outcomes for the minority group.
• XREF: connects to: Drug-war arrests and imprisonment fell disproportionately on Black Americans — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1435