Equal Treatment in Drug Bust; Doesn't Look Likely

by Alan Bean, 

Friends of Justice

A routine drug bust in Fort Worth, Texas ... has sparked a firestorm of media interest.Seventeen people have been arrested, almost all of them charged with selling small amounts of marijuana to an undercover agent.

Fifteen of the defendants are students at Texas Christian University and four are football players.  Without the sports connection, no one would give much attention to a routine drug roundup, but in Fort Worth the Horned Frogs are the biggest thing going.

Reading through the stories in the Star-Telegram, I couldn’t help thinking about the big Tulia drug bust in 1999.  But there is a difference.  Media response to the Tulia bust was universally positive.  Seldom was heard a discouraging word . . . until Friends of Justice got involved. Continue reading.

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Jim Crow Redux; More African Americans Under Criminal Jurisdiction

There are more African Americans under criminal jurisdiction, either in prison or jail or on probation or parole, than were slaves a decade before the onset of the Civil War. In the Chicago area alone, nearly 80% of African American men have been labeled felons for life.

As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised due to felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870, the year the 15th Amendment was ratified, explicitly prohibiting discrimination in the right to vote on the basis of race. What's driving these numbers?

The war on drugs.

And the consequences are devastating.

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