Pa. saw 25,635 marijuana arrests last year

[phillynormlmedia]

http://www.examiner.com/norml-in-philadelphia/pennsylvania-saw-25-635-marijuana-arrests-last-year

by Chris Goldstein 10/1/2010 - According to the Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System there were 25, 635 adult arrests for marijuana prohibition related offenses in 2009. About 75% were for possession.

Sale and manufacturing accounted for 5,083 arrests and possession accounted for 20, 552.

Men were arrested more than women at a rate greater than 6 to 1.*

Whites were arrested more than African-Americans across the state. But the trend of a racial disparity to the arrests in Philadelphia continued.

Of the 10, 661 African-Americans arrested for marijuana violations in Pennsylvania statewide during 2009 about half were arrested by Philadelphia city police, a total of 5,158 people.

PhillyNORML will release the group’s annual report on the city marijuana arrest data next week.

* 22,176 men vs 3,460 women

http://www.examiner.com/norml-in-philadelphia/pennsylvania-saw-25-635-marijuana-arrests-last-year

[Quietus]

Two pieces of data I would look for to complete the picture.

1) How many of said arrests lead a prosecution on the offense?
2) How many of said arrests were ancillary charges resulting from an arrest for a different crime, such as DUI or gun possession?

[phillynormlmedia]

1- Working on that data. Good news: We can find that in the PA UCR. Bad news: it takes some real data drilling time.

2- Well we are looking here at the arrests not the charges. Simple answer is: unknown.  Unless someone is willing to spend the time cross referencing each individual's arrest with their specific police report ( x 25,000+) it would be difficult to determine.
 However, it is assumed that those listed under the PA UCR under the criminal code violations 18B marijuana sale/manufacture or 18F marijuana possession that the individuals were arrested specifically for that offense, though they could be charged with other violations.

Also of note and another unknown - How many marijuana arrests result in Disorderly Conduct pleas? This is the most common outcome I have found from possession cases challenged at all in court.

Double also:  How many arrests result in the offender being remanded into mandatory in-patient drug treatment programs? That data we might get from SAMSHA...

We are lucky to have the PA UCR data accessible online....NJ require OPRA requests and hand-sorting monthly police reports.....

[Quietus]

If the information is available in data form, I could easily write an application to sort through the mess.  If the data is not included and as you seem to suggest only available if you go through 25k pieces of paper then well no thanks.

The reason I would like to see the data, is that generally police tend to throw mud at a wall when effecting an arrest.  Most of them, usually dropped as they work trough the legal system.  The snapshot of the data available while interesting, doesn't give any indication as to the true 'forward intent' of prosecution of actual drug cases in PA.

Iiirc, the PA population is around 12.5m residents.  All said in done even if one assumes that all 20k of those arrests were not ancillary charges, I'm getting the feeling that PA is not exactly a 'drug warrior' state.  That's a good thing.

The racial disparity you mention is curious.  Philadelphia obviously has a large black population.  I can't say anything about the demographics in other large cities such as Pitts.  If Pitts has a similar demographic makeup, then that indicates there is a valid issue to look into.  Otherwise, it's easily explained away through the anthropic principle.

*edit

Code:

Philadelpha - Black or African American: 43.5%
Pittsburgh -   Black or African American  26.5%

Those numbers I just pulled from wikipedia not census data, so take them with a grain of salt.  Not taking crime rates into account for each city, it would at first glance indicate there would be a naturally arising concentration in Philadelphia for black marijuana arrests across the state.

The sex disparity is huge, and I would be at a loss to begin to explain whatever social dynamic is behind that.  Girls usually get their weed through their boyfriends maybe?  There's certainly something weird going on there, as I doubt it reflects in any fashion the ratio of smokers between the sexes.  If a guy is a smoker, then in my experience so generally is his girlfriend or wife.

[phillynormlmedia]

RE: Racial and gender disparity in arrests

First: Whites and African Americans consume marijuana at near equal rates, overall.

PA has an 80% white population and 10% black population. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42000.html

The statewide arrest data for marijuana possession shows 12, 209 white people and 8, 227 black people....certainly not representative of equal prohibition enforcement among two equally pot smoking groups of people...

Little will be found in taking math to the trending here....in order to understand it we have to get off-paper.

Some understanding of the racial disparity may indeed be found in the overall gender disparity to marijuana possession arrests.

These strange trends in the Philly marijuana arrests deserve a more real-world look at how these laws are enforced.  It is practice not demographics where the answer might be...in my opinion.

[Quietus]

Little will be found in taking math to the trending here....in order to understand it we have to get off-paper.

Some understanding of the racial disparity may indeed be found in the overall gender disparity to marijuana possession arrests.

These strange trends in the Philly marijuana arrests deserve a more real-world look at how these laws are enforced.  It is practice not demographics where the answer might be...in my opinion.

There's something you're overlooking, in which an anthropic coincidence type of argument is powerful in terms of an explanation.  It is indeed part math, but you are correct that when you say that in order to understand it you need to get off paper.  The other parts are equal parts social and political.

Consider, when politicians such as Street and Nutter have "cracked down on vice and crime" around election time they tend to do so in heavily black neighborhoods

I would ask you to remember that events such as "operation sunshine" cracking down on drugs and vice, generally were effected in black neighborhoods surrounding kensington, down towards Darion street on allegheny or in North Philadelphia.  Operation "safe streets" irrc was effected in West Philadelphia.  They are not set up in areas such as Hungtingdon Valley, West Chester or in Amish neighborhoods down in Lancaster.

That simply accelerates a disparity that arises because of a difference in arrest rates themselves in black vs white neighborhoods across the state due to the base crime rate.

The social factors I mentioned, are ones I know first hand having lived and partied in both black and white areas.

When I was living in pure white areas of montgomery county for example, the kids smoking weed would tend to do so out of the eye of the public.  In a friend's house or apartment, in the garage or way back in the woods and usually in small social groups.

That's a stark contrast to the social dynamic I've witnessed living in areas with a heavy black concentration. There are invariably large groups of black kids that tend to congregate, for some reason usually outside a 7-11 or a chinese take-out smoking weed.  When the group gets large enough and loud enough, the police show up and the group scatters, only to begin to reform once again after the police leave, having arrested one or two individuals.

When you mentioned 'disorderly conduct', I immediately thought of events like that.

[debbieinpa.]

Why don`t we hear any huge heroin or cocaine busts? These are the drugs that kill, not to mention alchohol (which is legal). To keep marijuana classified with these other drugs is just wrong! This is totally rediculous to spend our taxpayer dollars on these stupid & outdated laws here in Pennsylvania.