Crime & Safety

A Black and White Issue: Illinois Has One of Biggest Racial Gaps in U.S. for Marijuana Arrests

Data shows a black person is 7 times more likely to get arrested for marijuana than a white person.

A new report from the American Civicl Liberties Union finds that blacks are much more likely than whites to get arrested for marijuana in the United States, even though usage rates are nearly the same.  

Illinois is among the four worst offenders, according to the report "Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests." 

A black person in Illinois is more than 7 times more likely to get arrested for marijuana than a white person, compared to a 3.7 gap nationally, according to the data. Other states with a large gap were Iowa, which ranked first, along with Washington, D.C. and Minnesota.

According to the ACLU’s original analysis, marijuana arrests now account for over half of all drug arrests in the United States. Of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010, 88% were for simply having marijuana. Nationwide, the arrest data revealed one consistent trend: significant racial bias. Despite roughly equal usage rates, Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana.

In Will County, the report says, blacks are five times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession (a 500 percent disparity,) with 439 arrests per 100,000 residents, compared to just 87 arrests per 100,00 residents for white residents.

This compares to 1,526 arrests per 100,000 residents Illinois-wide for black residents, and 202 per 100,00 white residents, a 706 percent disparity.

In nearby counties: Cook showed a 720 percent disparity (blacks 7.2 times more likely than whites to be arrested,) Lake a 580 percent disparity, DuPage a 530 percent disparity and Kane a 570 percent disparity.

The ACLU officially endorses the complete legalization of marijuana in the report.

"Like America’s larger War on Drugs, America’s war on marijuana has been a failure," the report says. "The aggressive enforcement of marijuana possession laws needlessly ensnares hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system, crowds our jails, is carried out in a racially biased manner, wastes millions of taxpayers’ dollars and has not reduced marijuana use or availability."

Read the full 187-page report here. (Will County and Illinois state data is on page 149.)

B.A. Morelli contributed to this report.


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