Pubdate: Wed, 20 Mar 2002
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2002 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://www.captimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73
Author: Samara Kalk
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)

JAIL RATE FOR BLACKS TARGETED

County Out Of Step, Prof Says

Dane County's war on drugs was fought primarily against 
African-Americans in the last decade, a UW-Madison professor said.

"The data is overwhelming," said Pam Oliver, a sociology professor 
who analyzes drug, crime and imprisonment statistics.

Dane County is above the state average for black imprisonment and 
below the state average for white imprisonment, she said. Fifty-eight 
percent of those sent to prison from Dane County are black.

The disparity is even more stark considering that blacks make up only 
6 percent of the county's population, Oliver said during a forum on 
racial profiling and community policing Tuesday evening. About 200 
people attended the Madison-area Urban Ministry event at Bethel 
Lutheran Church.

In 1999, the black imprisonment rate in Dane County was 39 times what 
it was for whites. That's down from a high of 48 in 1997, she said.

As a researcher, Oliver crunches numbers and comes up with 
statistics. It is not her role to point fingers or place blame, she 
said.

"Racial disparity is a statistical concept. It does not prove 
discrimination," she said.

What it does do is point to problems in the community that should be 
taken seriously and investigated, she said.

An analogy would be emergency room doctors examining a patient with a 
107-degree fever and noting that something is terribly wrong, said 
Oliver. "We have to figure out what to do. Disparities are a symptom, 
not a diagnosis," she said.

For 175 years in the United States imprisonment rates were relatively 
stable, she said. Then, in the mid-1970s the country began 
incarcerating more and more of its population, with blacks imprisoned 
at a higher rate than whites.

Early in the last century, black imprisonment rates were about double 
those of whites. The ratio rose to about 4 to 1 after World War II, 
mainly because white imprisonment rates declined, she said. Since 
1975, the disparity has grown to 7 to 1 nationally, said Oliver.

In Wisconsin, it's 20 to 1, she said.

Nationally and in Wisconsin, drug offenses are the major cause of the 
rise in black imprisonment. There is no evidence that the rise is due 
to drug use trends, she said, pointing to data that showed the rates 
of illegal drug use are only slightly higher for blacks than whites.

Some, including Madison Police Chief Richard Williams, who is black, 
have argued that the arrest and imprisonment rates simply reflect the 
fact that drug dealers are primarily black and Hispanic. But Oliver 
maintained there is evidence that the ethnic mix of those who sell 
drugs is similar to those who use drugs, she said.

Williams also spoke at the forum, promoting his brand of "community 
policing," a strategy that steers away from traditional, reactive 
police work and tries to address the causes of crime through 
community-police partnerships.

He also spoke out against racial profiling - the practice of stopping 
motorists based on their ethnicity or race.

It's real, said Williams. But it is also hard to characterize.

"If you went around the room and asked what racial profiling is, you 
would get 30 different answers," he said.

Williams pointed to a series of reports in The Capital Times in 1996 
that showed that black motorists were treated differently on the road 
by Madison police.

Using a computer to analyze more than 25,500 traffic tickets issued 
between January 1994 and October 1995, black drivers were found to be 
three times as likely as white drivers to be stopped.

A special Equal Opportunities Commission subcommittee on possible 
racial bias in traffic citations was formed in response to the 
articles.

That eventually led to the formation of Mayor Sue Bauman's Task Force 
on Race Relations, a move that Williams likened to "throwing a pebble 
into the ocean."

When it formed in 1998, the 15-member panel was designed in part to 
recommend remedies for the apparent racial disparity in who is 
stopped in traffic by Madison police.

One obvious starting point is to have a police force that is in touch 
with its neighborhoods and knows its residents, say advocates of 
community policing.

"Community policing is not a destination but a journey," the chief said.
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