7 months into 2018 and the New York City Police Department can boast that they’ve made more than 6,000 arrests for weed. While that’s nothing to really boast about, this next number is really something that should make the NYPD cover their face.
93% of those arrests were all people of color.
The NYPD watchdog group PROP took a look at the data from the public state records to see what the demographics were from the arrests.
Compared to the first six months of 2017, PROP found that 93% of arrests for cannabis involved people of color.
Even though Mayor DiBlasio has called for police to end arrests for cannabis, clearly the police on the ground have not got the message, especially when dealing with people of color.
The NYPD will have to find new ways to go about handling cannabis arrests going into the future. In September, Mayor DiBlasio’s a new marijuana possession policy should change how the NYPD handles weed. Rather than head to jail, a citation will be issued.
This was a way to combat the disparity in arrests in the city.