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Toronto Star Investigation: Black pot users 3x more likely to be arrested than white

Z

Zombie James

Banned
https://www.thestar.com/news/insigh...a-arrests-reveal-startling-racial-divide.html

Black people with no history of criminal convictions have been three times more likely to be arrested by Toronto police for possession of small amounts of marijuana than white people with similar backgrounds, according to a Toronto Star analysis.

They’ve also been more likely to be detained for bail, the data shows.

The disparity is largely due to targeting of Black people by Toronto police, according to criminologists and defence lawyers interviewed by the Star, who note that surveys show little difference in marijuana use between Black and white people.

Anthony Morgan, a human rights lawyer and community activist, called the statistics “another example of the failed war on drugs.”

As Canada moves toward the legalization of marijuana, the Star examined 10 years’ worth of Toronto Police Service marijuana arrest and charge data, obtained in a freedom-of-information request.

From 2003 to 2013, Toronto police arrested 11,299 people whose skin colour was noted — and who had no prior convictions — for possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana. These individuals were not on parole or probation when arrested.

According to how police recorded skin colour, 25.2 per cent of those people were Black, 52.8 per cent were white, 15.7 per cent were brown, and 6.3 per cent were categorized as “other.”

For Black people, the rate of arrest is significantly higher than their proportion of Toronto’s population in the 2006 census, which is 8.4 per cent. Whites represented 53.1 per cent of people in the city.
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A third of the 40,635 marijuana charges during that decade — 33.8 per cent — were against Black people. The charges were for possession of no more than 30 grams, and for possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Marijuana possession arrests and offences noted in the data steadily increased during that decade. The trend parallels the police practice of “carding” people not involved in crimes. A 2010 Star investigation found that Black people in Toronto are 3.2 times more likely to be stopped, questioned and documented by police than white people. The ratio remained constant in three subsequent Star examinations of carding data.

“I think the overlap is clear,” Jones, of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, says of the rise in carding and marijuana charges. “If you over-police, or you over-surveil, you are going to find particular kinds of offences kind of shoot up.”
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Annamaria Enenajor, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer with a focus on civil rights, sees what she describes as policing bias on her walks to her office near University of Toronto student housing.

“I don’t see them doing raids on those frat houses,” she says. “It’s all drunken white boys over there. I walk by and I definitely smell weed.

“It comes from the legacy of racism and the reality of racism,” she adds. “Mistakes by white Canadians are forgivable and mistakes by Black Canadians are deviant and require punishment.”

Morgan says the drug statistics “expose what many in and outside of Black communities have recognized as a war on Blacks.”

He notes that for many Black teens, getting searched for marijuana is their first interaction with authorities. Those charged often can’t afford a lawyer and rarely get the option of settling their charge with a donation to charity, for example.

They instead appear in a courtroom where everyone, from the judge to the administrative clerk, tends to be white. “The sense that ‘the system is out to get me’ ends up having a very visual representation,” Morgan says.
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I can't wait till next year when this stupidity and waste hopefully, finally stops, or at least gets significantly reduced. This garbage is one of the main reasons why I support legalization.
 
M

mlclmtckr

Banned
This thread will be good once our resident local anti-BLM cop apologists show up I'm sure.

In all seriousness I don't think anyone (except the one or two winners mentioned above) will be surprised by this. I was once caught rolling inside Union Station and talked my way out of trouble. Cops in my experience don't really care about weed, but then again my experience isn't the same as black people's.
 
S

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Annamaria Enenajor, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer with a focus on civil rights, sees what she describes as policing bias on her walks to her office near University of Toronto student housing.

“I don’t see them doing raids on those frat houses,” she says. “It’s all drunken white boys over there. I walk by and I definitely smell weed.
Click to expand...

Well yeah. I went to school up here in the NE, everyone I know smoked, and the only kid I know who ever got kicked out for possession was...you guessed it...black.
 
L

LinkAndEpona

Banned
More white people were still arrested than all other nationalities though. I'm not sure where the racism is supposed to come from.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
Thank God this is getting legalized soon. We can stop this ridiculous fallacy.

However, I'm curious about cases post 2013, and post Harper. Early 2000's was still a shitty time for Marijuana users, and it's only in 2010's that the nature of arrests have toned down.
 
Z

Zombie James

Banned
LinkAndEpona said:
More white people were still arrested than all other nationalities though. I'm not sure where the racism is supposed to come from.
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Proportion of the population:

For Black people, the rate of arrest is significantly higher than their proportion of Toronto’s population in the 2006 census, which is 8.4 per cent. Whites represented 53.1 per cent of people in the city.
Click to expand...
 
A

Agent Icebeezy

Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
There is a pot, kettle, black joke in this somewhere but I'm not able to come up with one at this moment in time. That said, water is wet, sky is blue. As a black man that does not partake in this, still disturbing to see the overwhelming slant in arrests.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
multiple cops have come out and said that the hard drug use in white communities remains unpoliced because they'll lose their overtime if they start arresting white people for drug offenses

LinkAndEpona said:
More white people were still arrested than all other nationalities though. I'm not sure where the racism is supposed to come from.
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only come back after you've learned how "proportion to population" works
 
Oppo

Oppo

Member
this is a bit misleading:

For Black people, the rate of arrest is significantly higher than their proportion of Toronto's population in the 2006 census, which is 8.4 per cent. Whites represented 53.1 per cent of people in the city.
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as per wiki

The most common reported ethnic origins[3] of Toronto residents are those from England (12.9%), China (32.0%), Canada (11.3%), Ireland (9.7%), Scotland (9.5%), India (17.6%), Italy (6.9%), the Philippines (5.5%), Germany (4.6%), France (4.5%), Poland (3.8%), Portugal (3.6%), and Jamaica (3.2%), or are of Jewish ethnic origin (3.1%). There is also a significant population of Ukrainians (2.5%), Russians (2.4%), Sri Lankans (2.3%), Spaniards (2.2%), Greeks (2.2%), Koreans (1.5%), Dutch (1.5%), Iranians (1.4%), Vietnamese (1.4%), Pakistanis (1.2%), Hungarians (1.2%), Guyanese (1.1%), and Welsh (1.0%). Communities of Afghans, Albanians, Arabs, Barbadians, Bangladeshis, Bulgarians, Colombians, Croats, Ecuadorians, Ethiopians, Grenadians, Macedonians, Mexicans, Nepalis, Romanians, Salvadorans, Serbs, Somalis, Tibetans, Trinidadians, and Vincentians are also recognized. Established ethnic neighbourhoods such as Chinatown, Corso Italia, Little Italy, Little India, Greektown, Koreatown, Little Jamaica, Little Portugal and Roncesvalles celebrate the city's multiculturalism.[4]
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So while the "white" stat is probably correct, the way that is worded makes Toronto look monolithic in culture, when it is anything but. Not to minimize the very real issue here but that line rubbed me the wrong way, editorially.
 
B

Brinbe

Member
Not surprised at all. The Toronto police are racist shits like ever other PD and I'm glad they've been exposed for who/what they are, especially in light of the all the BLM controversy. Who knew that aggrieved minorities might actually be right about some things?
 
U

umop_3pisdn

Member
I don't know if it's due to the power of American media or what, but as a Canadian I've had racist attitudes towards black people despite there being practically none where I grew up. So yeah we don't really need to have America's shitty history of race relations to still have significant problems.
 
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