RACIAL PROFILING ONLY 'DESCRIBES' ITS PERPETRATOR

New Jersey State Police superintendent Colonel Carl Williams was dead wrong
when he stated in a newspaper article a week ago that a majority of drug
traffickers in his state are black and Latino.

What he should've said is blacks and Latinos are more likely to be arrested
by his troops. His cavalier attitude is why Governor Christine Todd Whitman
fired his sorry self.

Like too many ineffective police leaders, Williams concocted an ugly untruth
about two communities that gets repeated so often, it almost sounds like
gospel. In Massachusetts, Latinos are sent to prison on drug charges at a
rate of 81 times that of whites, according to a 1998 study by the state
attorney general's office. For blacks, the rate was 39 times that of whites.
That's because they're all aspiring Pablo Escobars, right? Wrong. Figures
from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that blacks get shoddy treatment
under the law when it comes to drug offenses. In 1994, the most recent year
for which figures were available, 38 percent of those arrested for drug
trafficking were black and 62 percent were white. The stats don't include
Latinos.

When it came to convictions, blacks had a much higher rate: 63 percent of
the convictions in state courts, compared with 37 percent for whites. Now,
the scary part: 52 percent of the convicted blacks got prison sentences,
compared with 38 percent of convicted whites. And, on average, blacks were
given a longer maximum sentence: 68 months compared with 54 months for
whites.

Why the unfair, dare I say racist, treatment? It's because street-corner
dealers in communities of color are easy targets for police. It's because
Latinos and blacks, who are disproportionately represented among the poor,
end up getting court-appointed lawyers who treat their cases in
assembly-line fashion.

It's because of racial profiling - a practice Williams's troops allegedly
used. The US Justice Department is investigating allegations that New Jersey
State Police pull over drivers for DWB or DWL - Driving While Black and
Driving While Latino.

The investigation was spurred after a county judge in 1996 found that
brown-skinned drivers are 4.8 times more likely than whites to be stopped on
the lower half of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Though Williams denied his force used racial profiling, several troopers
have filed discrimination lawsuits against the State Police, saying they
were trained to spot black and Latino motorists.

Williams reasoned that because 63 percent of the drug suspects arrested in
New Jersey were black or Latino, ''it's most likely a minority group
involved with'' drug trafficking.

With that kind of logic, why don't police set up shop in minority
communities and do all their arrests there? Clearly, if police stop more
blacks and Latinos, chances are they're going to find drugs. Clearly, poor
communities are ravaged by the drug culture. There, marijuana and crack are
consumed to numb despair. But it's the recreational users - yuppies and
bored rich people - who create the demand for drugs. Statistics reported by
the American Bar Association show that 75 percent of all drug users are
white.

The real enemy of the drug war is leaders like Williams. They poison us with
faulty statistics and mislead their troops, making them think they're going
to make the big bust if they catch the dude with dreadlocks driving the
Pinto. Big-time dealers are savvy about racial profiling, so they find
''mules'' that police wouldn't suspect - women and white people. Though
there are a lot of hard-working officers trying to catch the ones
responsible for bringing drugs into neighborhoods - suburban and urban
alike - there are too many who get off on cuffing juveniles, pawns used in
the game. The war on drugs shouldn't be fought in Lawrence, or Framingham,
or Roxbury, where teenage dealers carry packets of crack hidden under their
tongues. It should be fought at the borders. Help the governments of
Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic establish
legitimate industries. The thousands of Peruvians and Colombians who toil in
coca fields would gladly leave for better-paying jobs.

Take the billions spent on building new prisons and pour that money into
after-school programs. Pay mentors who will keep juveniles out of the street
trade. And, find police superintendents who won't mislead their officers
into thinking they're going to win the drug war by cuffing the kid
ditty-bopping down the street.