Original article
Drugs, race and hard time
Prison much likelier for blacks
By ROBERT GAVIN, Staff writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Tuesday, December 4, 2007
ALBANY -- Blacks in Albany County are 58 times more likely to be imprisoned than whites for drug offenses -- the sixth-highest disparity in a national study released Monday.
The survey, covering 198 counties with populations that exceed 250,000, ranked Albany County 11th-highest in the drug imprisonment rate for blacks.
The 2002 data, compiled by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., showed 97 percent of the nation's largest-population counties have imprisoned blacks at a higher rate than whites.
"Those numbers are frightening," Albany County District Attorney David Soares said when informed of the local statistics.
Soares, who is black, made drug sentencing laws a key part of his 2004 campaign. The Justice Policy Institute says this is the first national study to localize the disparity of imprisonment for drug offenses at the county level. Eleven counties in New York were examined, with only Onondaga County, which includes the Syracuse area, showing a higher racial disparity than Albany.
The report, The Vortex: The Concentrated Racial Impact of Drug Imprisonment and the Characteristics of Punitive Counties, showed counties that have higher poverty rates, large black populations and large police or judicial budgets imprison people for drug offenses at higher rates than those without those characteristics.
Jason Ziedenberg, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, provided no explanation for the disparity in Albany County. He noted only a handful of counties did not show one. He suggested the way police target drug activity could be a cause.
"Most drug enforcement is happening at the street level in urban America," he said. "It's easier to arrest someone for a drug arrest in the open, on a street corner ... as opposed to the suburbs or the dorm rooms or universities around the country."
The county with the highest racial disparity for drug offenses was Forsyth County, N.C., followed by Onondaga County; Dane County, Wis.; Kane County, Ill.; and Westmoreland County, Pa.
The few counties showing no disparity included Rockingham County, N.H., Utah County, Utah, and Washington County, Ore.
Soares says he has attacked the drug problem in Albany County by targeting suppliers as opposed to the street corner dealers and addicts. He said Albany County's "entire enforcement strategy for decades" has been just the opposite.
As result, he said, "How can you be surprised at the numbers in this study?" He pledged to push for "one standard of justice for all."
Albany Police Chief James W. Tuffey said his department does target higher-level drug traffickers, and noted the federal case brought against the Jungle Junkies, who were reputed to be among the city's most violent street gangs.
But the chief, citing community concerns, said police cannot ignore street-level drug dealing.
"When you have street level open air markets, people demand that we do something about it also," Tuffey said. "We will not give up doing the street interdiction."
Janine Kava, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, did not comment on the statistics but noted that a state commission is examining the structure of all of New York's sentencing laws and heard testimony during three hearings on several issues -- including racial disparity in sentencing.
Gavin can be reached at 434-2403 or by e-mail at rgavin@ timesunion.com.
A study finds far more blacks are imprisoned on drug charges than whites in high-population counties in the United States.
99 times the rate of whites, Onondaga County
58 times, Albany County
40 times, Dutchess County
30 times, Erie County
36 times, Nassau County
35 times, Orange County
37 times, Westchester County
5 times, New York City
Source: 2002 data compiled by the Justice Policy Institute
HOME
