RACE MATTERS

A new report tells us something most already knew: Blacks are far
more likely than whites to be incarcerated for drug crimes. Following
the shooting death of 26-year-old Lima resident Tarika Wilson during
a police SWAT raid, the data show it's naive to think the anger is
about her death alone, but rather people are upset about a system
that they have good reason to think works against them.

In 193 of the country's largest 198 counties, blacks face
disproportionately higher rates of incarceration that whites for drug
offenses, based on a national report by the Justice Policy Institute,
a Washington, D.C.-based organization that wants to reform sentencing
policies. Of the nine Ohio counties in the study - Allen County is
not among them - blacks are imprisoned 10 times more often than
whites in Lucas County. The scale goes to a high of 21 percent in
Butler County.

Lima attorney Ken Rexford last year made a similar charge against the
criminal justice system, saying blacks in Allen County face double
the charges whites do, based on factors such as police waiting to
make an arrest until more sales have taken place. Few people wanted
to have the discussion last year. It is a conversation that must take place.

The solution to this de facto racism, of course, is simple: Stop
imprisoning people for trading in drugs or using them.

Black leaders, as well as white leaders, should do everything
possible to eradicate recreational drug use from their communities.
But the government's war on drugs has done little, if anything, to
curtail drug use among blacks or any other Americans. A reduction in
drug use involves the work of counselors, parents, teachers,
preachers, doctors and friends. It takes a culture, not armed state
agents charged with feeding a growth industry of incarceration.

Joel Dyer, author of "The Perpetual Prisoner Machine; How America
Profits from Crime," told Freedom Communications that blacks are
disproportionately arrested for drugs mostly because of their
collective economic plight. "We still have a higher percentage of
blacks than whites living in poverty," Dyer said. "In policing,
communities tend to have more enforcement in minority and low-income
neighborhoods. That means if you're using drugs, and you live in one
of those neighborhoods, you're more likely to get caught. You are
likely to be defended by a busy public defender's office, rather than
a private lawyer who can spend ample time and money on your case.
Once you're in prison for drugs, you stand a good chance of becoming
a violent criminal because it's tough to survive in prison."

Dyer, an expert on the public/private prison phenomenon, explains
that for nonviolent drug convicts, survival in the joint often
involves joining a race-based prison gang that mandates violent behavior.

"Stiff penalties for drug crimes can actually generate violent crime
because drug convicts eventually get released, having become violent
in prison," Dyer said.

Research by author and former law professor David Kopel, of the
Colorado-based Independence Institute, has found incarceration of
drug criminals diverts law enforcement resources from violent crime
and results in shorter sentences for violent criminals. That's partly
because imprisonment of common drug offenders has created a cell
shortage. Burgeoning inmate populations have left sheriffs and
politicians throughout the country clamoring for new and bigger
prisons for the past decade.

Official drug prohibition results in a dangerous and sometimes
violent black market, as forbidden trade usually does. In this case,
the underground market has spawned a judicial racket that places a
price on human heads. Based on our history, it's not surprising that
the humans in our modern inmate trade are disproportionately black.