December, 21 2015, 02:00pm EDT
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Study Documents Extreme Racial Disparity in Arrests for Low-Level Offenses
In four test cities, Blacks were 2.6 to 9.6 times more likely than Whites to be arrested for loitering, disorderly conduct, trespassing, and marijuana possession
NEWARK
Black people were 9.6 times more likely to be arrested than White people in Jersey City in 2013 for low-level offenses such as loitering, possession of small amounts of marijuana, trespassing, and disorderly conduct, according to a study (PDF) released today by the ACLU of New Jersey.
This extreme racial disparity was not unique to the state's second largest city. Data for the most recent years available revealed disparities in low-level arrests in the three other municipalities studied - Millville, where Blacks were 6.3 times more likely to be arrested; Elizabeth, 3.4 times; and New Brunswick, 2.6 times. Disparities in the number of arrests between Hispanics/Latinos and Whites also were significant, where data were available. Not all of the departments tracked ethnicity in their arrest data.
"The data reveal a clear pattern of communities of color disproportionately bearing the brunt of police practices that target low-level offenses," said ACLU-NJ Executive Director Udi Ofer.
"In Black and Latino communities, New Jerseyans are arrested for minor misbehavior at a much greater rate than in White communities. Unlike more serious crime, where there is a victim or some form of property damage, low-level offenses rest primarily on a police officer's discretion to arrest for behavior that poses little or no harm to the community. The discretionary nature of these arrests creates ample opportunity for arbitrary and unfair enforcement of the law."
The origins of this report stem from a 2013 national report by the ACLU that showed Black people in New Jersey were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than White people, despite similar rates of marijuana use - a clear indicator of selective enforcement.
"New Jersey's shameful racial disparities in arrests for minor offenses mirror what we're seeing across the country," said Ezekiel Edwards, Director of the ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project. "Just as in Ferguson, Minneapolis, Maryland, and beyond, New Jersey police must end this unequal treatment and the harm caused to communities of color."
The ACLU of NJ, supported by the national ACLU, further examined those findings by taking a closer look at arrest data from four municipalities in New Jersey - Jersey City, Elizabeth, New Brunswick and Millville - that reflected the diversity of the state in population density, demographics and geography.
In the report, the ACLU-NJ examined 10 years of data on the enforcement of four low-level offenses: loitering; marijuana possession of 50 grams or less; defiant trespass; and disorderly conduct. The report chose to examine those arrests because police officers exercise so much discretion in the enforcement of these types of offenses.
The report relied on departmental data for arrests obtained through the Open Public Records Act. The report originally sought to include Asbury Park in the analysis but the Asbury Park Police Department, despite the existence of a data management system and electronic database, was unable to produce records that could be properly analyzed and was dropped from the study.
The report documented widespread and extreme racial disparities in all four locations studied. Among the findings of the report:
- Racial disparities between Black and White arrests exist in every city studied. For the length of each city's study period, the data show Blacks in Millville were 6.2 times more likely to be arrested than Whites for the low-level offenses studied; in Jersey City, they were 4.8 times more likely; in Elizabeth, they were 3.6 times more likely; and in New Brunswick, 3.2 times more likely.
- Individuals charged with low-level offenses are generally not involved in serious crimes. For example, 95% of the low-level arrests in Jersey City did not involve any other offense classified as "serious" by the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.
- Some law enforcement agencies do not even track Hispanic/Latino data. For example, the Elizabeth Police Department does not track Hispanic/Latino arrests, despite serving a population that is nearly 60% Hispanic/Latino.
- Police department records are often inaccessible and were kept in a haphazard manner by all four departments. The lack of transparent, reliable records hinders transparency and accountability.
The human cost of all of these low-level arrests can be devastating.
"Even though these are low-level offenses, arrests and convictions can impose heavy burdens on the person involved, including payment of court costs and fines; criminal records that will follow them the rest of their lives; and loss of income, housing, child custody, or immigration status," said Alexander Shalom, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU-NJ. "In extreme cases, a confrontation with police over a low-level offense can escalate into an episode of deadly violence."
The report recommends remedies at the local and state level that include changing the policies and practices of police in enforcing the law; improving recordkeeping; and creating greater accountability by police to the civilian population they serve. Among the specific reforms:
- Local officials, police chiefs, and prosecutors should agree to make enforcement of low-level offenses that do not harm public safety among their lowest priorities.
- State and local government should adopt strong and enforceable anti-racial profiling laws and municipalities should mandate police training for conscious and unconscious bias, which can influence officers' decision-making when dealing with the public
- Police departments should stop using low-level arrests as a performance measure for evaluating officers.
- Cities should institute oversight of police departments, such as a strong and independent Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to review allegations of individual officers' misconduct and Inspector General (IG) offices to monitor police policies and practices.
- Law enforcement should expand use of police dashboard and body worn cameras with appropriate rules for retention and disclosure to the public.
- New Jersey should legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana. The disproportionate number of Black arrests for marijuana possession, despite similar usage rates between Whites and Blacks, illustrates the fundamental unfairness of these laws in practice.
- Local police departments must improve data collection and management, and they should systematically analyze the data for the benefit of the department and the public.
- Police departments should collect data on arrests, searches and stops by requiring officers to fill out reports and publish the results online on a periodic, preferably monthly, basis.
The report also calls on the Attorney General to investigate racial disparities in low-level offenses in municipalities throughout the state.
"This study serves as a glimpse into the racial disparities in low-level arrests for only four law-enforcement agencies. But it's clear: Black and Latino communities bear the disproportionate impact of enforcement in New Jersey," said Ari Rosmarin, Public Policy Director of the ACLU-NJ. "The Attorney General should investigate whether such disparities exist throughout the state, determine the causes of the disparities, and take steps to eliminate them. It's time for action."
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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House Dems Unveil Sweeping Bill to Protect Worker Rights and Safety
"This bill will help level the playing field and, once again, restore the balance of power between workers and their employers," said Rep. Bobby Scott.
Jul 26, 2024
A group of Democratic U.S. House members on Friday unveiled legislation "aimed at bolstering protections for America's workers and ensuring accountability for employers who flout labor and employment laws."
The Labor Enforcement to Securely (LET'S) Protect Workers Act was introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.)—the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce—and House Labor Caucus Co-Chairs Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), and Steven Horsford (D-Nev.).
The bill's sponsors said their legislation is based on the premise that "employment laws are a promise to our nation's workers" meant to "secure the most basic rights of work."
"That promise is broken," they contended. "Recent shocking revelations about massive increases in the number of children illegally overworked and trafficked into dangerous jobs—just over 85 years since the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was enacted to eliminate that very problem—is the latest example of the ways that this promise to America's workers is broken."
Across the U.S., Republican state lawmakers have been advancing legislation to remove restrictions on child labor, despite several high-profile workplace deaths of minors. At the federal level, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) last year introduced a bill that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work in the logging industry.
The LET'S Protect Workers Act sponsors highlighted rampant wage theft and overtime violations, workplace injuries, and union-busting by employers who "know that even if a resource-starved Department of Labor catches a violation, the penalties are a mere slap on the wrist."
"People should be able to come home at the end of the day—alive, well, in one piece, and with all the wages they worked hard to earn," the lawmakers asserted. "Children should be in schools, not dangerous workplaces, and workers should be able to organize a union without interference or the threat of retaliation from their employers."
According to House Education and Workforce Committee Democrats, if passed, the LET'S Protect Workers Act would:
- Increase civil monetary penalties for violations of child labor, minimum wage and overtime, worker health and safety, and farmworker protection standards;
- Improve mine safety and reliable funding of black lung benefits through new and increased civil monetary penalties and the option to shut down scofflaw operators;
- Set new penalties for retaliation against workers who exercise their family and medical leave rights;
- Strengthen enforcement of mental health parity requirements for employer-sponsored health plans;
- Close a loophole that allows employers to escape penalties for failing to keep records of workplace injuries if [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration] does not detect the violation within six months; and
- Create new penalties for violations of the National Labor Relations Act, consistent with the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
"Every American should be fairly compensated and be able to return home safely at the end of the day," Scott said in a statement Friday. "Unfortunately, shortcomings in our labor laws enable unethical employers to exploit workers, endanger children, and suppress the right to organize—with little accountability."
"That's why I'm proud to introduce the LET'S Protect Workers Act, which will hold bad actors accountable and strengthen penalties for labor law violations," he added. "This bill will help level the playing field and, once again, restore the balance of power between workers and their employers."
In a joint statement, Dingell, Horsford, Norcross, and Pocan said that "the lack of meaningful enforcement makes it all too easy for bad faith actors to get away with illegally violating workers' rights—from firing workers for organizing a union, to allowing children to work overnight shifts, or jeopardizing workers' safety by ignoring workplace regulations."
"We're proud to join Ranking Member Scott in introducing this bill to crack down on unscrupulous employers and to ensure that workers receive the protections they deserve," the lawmakers added.
Earlier this month, nearly 50 labor organizations led by the AFL-CIO and representing a wide range of U.S. workers urged congressional Democrats to resist Republican efforts to roll back rules enacted by the Biden administration to protect worker rights amid relentless attacks by abusive employers.
Specifically, the labor groups warned that Republicans are trying to use the Congressional Review Act—which was enacted to strengthen oversight of federal rulemaking—to overturn pro-worker rules enacted by the Department of Labor and other government bodies.
Meanwhile, Republicans including former President Donald Trump—the 2024 GOP nominee—have been trying to woo U.S. workers with proposals including a tax exemption for tipped employees panned as a "
hollow promise" by experts and by inviting Teamsters president Sean O'Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention last week.
In response to Republicans' dubious courting of U.S. labor, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas)—who is a co-sponsor of the LET'S Protect Workers Act—recently called for holding what would be a largely symbolic vote on the PRO Act. The bill was revived last year by Scott and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and, if passed, would expand labor protections including the right to organize and collectively bargain.
"If Republicans wanna talk like they're pro-worker, then let's have a vote on the PRO Act next week," Casar
said on social media last week. "Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk. Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"
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"In every region in Ukraine that was formerly occupied by Russia, we have seen evidence of civilians killed and injured by antipersonnel mines left behind by Russian forces," said one researcher.
Jul 26, 2024
Amnesty International on Friday demanded a "prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial investigation" into the use of antipersonnel landmines, "which litter territories in Ukraine formerly and currently occupied by Russian forces."
The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor says that Ukraine is "severely contaminated" with antipersonnel landmines, which Russia's troops have used since 2014, but particularly since Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
"Landmines have been documented in 11 of Ukraine's 27 regions: Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia," according to the monitor's latest update, published in November. "Russian forces have used at least 13 types of antipersonnel mines in Ukraine since February 2022."
Ukraine is a state party to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction of 1997 but lacks legislation to enforce its implementation. Human Rights Watch last summer gathered evidence of the Ukrainian military's use of the banned mines. Russia is not a party to the treaty.
Patrick Thompson, a Ukraine researcher at Amnesty, said Friday that "in every region in Ukraine that was formerly occupied by Russia, we have seen evidence of civilians killed and injured by antipersonnel mines left behind by Russian forces."
"They are a daily, deadly threat to civilians. Some have been deliberately placed in civilian homes where they maim and kill," Thompson highlighted. "There must be an effective investigation into all such incidents as possible war crimes."
The group shared just one survivor's story of encountering a mine:
In March 2022, Russian forces evicted Oleksandr* (not his real name) and his mother from their flat in Snihurivka, in the region of Mykolaiv. A Russian military unit took over the entire apartment block until it was forced to withdraw following fierce fighting around Snihurivka in November 2022.
After the Russian retreat, Oleksandr returned to the apartment block to assess how badly it had been damaged. Upon entering the basement, he stepped on a disguised PFM-1 antipersonnel mine that had been placed under wooden planks. The mine exploded, Oleksandr fell, and landed on other disguised mines that had apparently, had been deliberately placed to injure or kill anyone entering the building. He lost both his left leg and arm in the incident.
“The deminers working to clear Ukraine of this threat are carrying out painstaking, dangerous work every day," Thompson noted. "While the scale of the problem is undeniably huge, the biggest obstacle to clearing Ukraine of landmines is Russia's ongoing aggression."
Thompson called on the international community to "commit to sustained financial and technical assistance to help Ukraine get rid of a danger that continues to wreck lives and livelihoods," and to continue fighting for an end to the use of the weapons.
"Countries must uphold the ban on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel mines worldwide," he said. "There must be an end to the use of such indiscriminate weapons."
The most recent report from the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine states that the war has killed at least 11,284 civilians there since 2022 and injured another 22,594—though the actual tallies are believed to be "considerably higher."
"The number of civilian casualties is likely particularly undercounted in cities such as Mariupol (Donetsk region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Sievierodonetsk (Luhansk region), where there was protracted intensive fighting at the start of the armed attack in 2022," according to the report.
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"Our proposal for a common minimum tax on billionaires is now on the map. G20 finance ministers have started to engage with it—and there is no going back," said progressive economist Gabriel Zucman.
Jul 26, 2024
Despite pushback from the United States delegation, finance ministers at a meeting of the G20 countries in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday agreed on the need to develop a global taxation system in which the richest in the world are taxed at a higher rate—potentially unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars annually to help close the international wealth gap.
Ahead of the G20 Summit scheduled for November, which Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government will host, the finance officials met this week to discuss economic issues and ultimately agreed to start a "dialogue on fair and progressive taxation, including of ultra-high-net-worth individuals."
The Lula government pushed for a proposal by progressive economist Gabriel Zucman, who serves as a G20 adviser and is a professor of economics at University of California, Berkeley.
Zucman's proposal calls for a minimum 2% tax on the fortunes of the world's roughly 3,000 wealthiest billionaires, which could raise approximately $250 billion globally per year.
"With full respect to tax sovereignty, we will seek to engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed," the ministers wrote in a declaration that was viewed by Politico.
"Finally, the richest people are being told they can't game the tax system or avoid paying their fair share. Governments have for too long been complicit in helping the ultra-rich pay little or zero tax."
The agreement to discuss higher taxes for the rich was reached despite objections from Germany and the U.S., whose treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said that "tax policy is very difficult to coordinate globally."
"We don't see a need or really think it's desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that," Yellen said at a press conference before the ministers met Thursday evening. "We think that all countries should make sure that their taxation systems are fair and progressive."
Although the agreement only states that countries will discuss the need for the wealthy to pay their fair share to help fight poverty and fund public education and other services, the global anti-poverty group Oxfam International said the meeting represented "serious global progress."
"For the first time in history, the world's largest economies have agreed to cooperate to tax the ultra-rich," said Susana Ruiz, tax policy lead for Oxfam. "Finally, the richest people are being told they can't game the tax system or avoid paying their fair share. Governments have for too long been complicit in helping the ultra-rich pay little or zero tax. Massive fortunes afford the world's ultra-rich outsized influence and power, which they wield to shield, stash, and supersize their wealth, undercutting democracy and widening inequality."
An Oxfam study released ahead of this week's meetingfound that the richest 1% of people in the world increased their fortunes by $42 trillion over the past decade, while taxation fell to "historically" low rates.
Ruiz called on G20 heads of state to "go further than their finance ministers" at the G20 Summit in November "and back concrete coordination: agreeing on a new global standard that taxes the ultra-rich at a rate high enough to close the gap between them and the rest of us."
"Brazil has kickstarted a truly global approach to tax the ultra-rich. But the work is just beginning and international cooperation is crucial," said Ruiz, adding that the task of ensuring the wealthiest people in the world are taxed fairly must not be left up to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—"the club of mostly rich countries."
Zucman expressed hope that the agreement between the G20 finance ministers marked a "historic" moment, and called it "an important step in the right direction."
"Our proposal for a common minimum tax on billionaires is now on the map. G20 finance ministers have started to engage with it—and there is no going back," said Zucman. "In its declaration, the G20 finance ministers commit to important preliminary steps. They need to do more and commit to a coordinated minimum tax on the super-rich. We know that it is practically doable—we know the solutions exist. And I'm confident, because there is overwhelming popular demand everywhere to get there."
"The status quo, in which the biggest winners from globalization are allowed to enjoy the lowest tax rates, is simply not sustainable," said Zucman.
The findings released this week by Oxfam highlighted polling that "consistently" found people across the world support raising taxes on the richest individuals.
"Eighty percent of Indians, 85% of Brazilians and 69% of people polled across 34 countries in Africa support increasing taxes on the rich," said the group. "Nearly three-quarters of millionaires polled in G20 countries support higher taxes on wealth, and over half think extreme wealth is a 'threat to democracy.'"
The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) applauded the agreement and called on the G20 to "go further in [the] fight to tax the rich."
"To take this forward, G20 should support work on this at the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation currently being negotiated at the United Nations," said Jayati Ghosh, co-chair of the ICRICT.
A U.N. committee is scheduled to submit "terms of reference" regarding a tax convention framework in August, and a final vote on the framework is expected by the end of 2025.
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