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BLACKS AND THE 'WAR ON DRUGS': Data shows African Americans suffer disproportionately.
*According to two recently released reports, African Americans have suffered much higher rates of arrests and imprisonment than whites in the nation's 30-year "war on drugs" even though whites actually constitute the majority of drug offenders.
One report, entitled "Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States" was compiled by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Among its findings: a Black man is nearly 12 times more likely than a white man to be sentenced to prison for violating drug laws (34 states were covered in the report).
In addition, a Black woman was 5 times more likely to be sentenced to prison for a drug offense than a white woman.
The second report, entitled "Disparity by Geography: The War on Drugs in America's Cities," concludes "Urban black Americans have borne the brunt of the war on drugs."
The report was compiled by the Sentencing Project and it shows a 225 percent increase in the rate of drug arrests for African Americans during the 1980 to 2003 period.
This compares with only a 70 percent increase among whites. In 11 cities, says the report, Black drug arrests soared by more than 500 percent. (source: Taylor Media Services)
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