10-19-2016, 11:25 AM
(10-18-2016, 01:21 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Yeah, studies show that white people and black people use drugs at about the same rate, yet black people are arrested for drugs at a rate over three times that of white people. That's not the way the law is written, that is the way it is executed, which is the role of law enforcement.
I've explained why this discrepancy exists in very minute detail. It has very little to nothing to do with ethnicity and everything to do with the ancillary crime that pervades the drug trade at the lower economic level. I will, sadly, explain again.
Upper class drug user wants drugs. They call their dealer who often times delivers straight to their door. At the very least they have a place they go to to buy directly and go straight home. As they have the money to buy drugs without engaging in further criminal activity to acquire it the drug sales themselves are low profile and therefore hard to catch. Thus, low level of arrests for upper class drug users.
Middle class drug user wants drugs. The vast majority of the time they already know a guy and they go to said dealers place of residence to buy drugs. As they have the money to buy drugs without engaging in further criminal activity to acquire it the drug sales themselves are low profile and therefore hard to catch. Most middle class drug users are busted when they attempt to buy at the street level. Thus, middle class drug users are arrested at a lower rate.
Lower class drug users usually don't have a regular dealer or if they do it's a street level dealer. Drug transactions are made in the open or in a residence that is known for selling drugs. Lower class people do not have the discretionary income to buy drugs and thus engage in a lot of ancillary criminal activity to acquire it. Chain and purse snatching, auto burglaries, home burglaries, armed robbery, prostitution, I could go on. Point being that this type of street crime attracts attention, lots of it. This doesn't even account for the amount of crime generated by the dealers themselves. Fights over dealing territory resulting in felony assaults, attempted murders and actual murders. Fights over product that generate the exact same level of violence. Additionally, drug sales fund a lot of street gang activity; extortion, violence used to intimidate witnesses or just ordinary citizens, illegal gun sales, sales of forged documents, etc. This brings an even larger degree of scrutiny from law enforcement and guess what, if it didn't then citizens would be screaming bloody murder asking why not. Rightfully so btw.
Yes, the sale of drugs funds cartels equally no matter the buyer but the plain fact of the matter is that upper and middle class drug use is both lower profile and doesn't create the highly visible street crime that lower class drug use does. The discrepancy has absolutely nothing to do with race and everything to do with the level of street crime the drug trade engenders at the lower class level.
I'm mortally sick of hearing the above argument because it's a fact without context. Not blaming you directly Matt, I'm just sick of this bullshit.
