Two years after marijuana possession became a ticketable offense, arresting people with a few grams of pot remains a bad habit for law enforcement, drug policy researchers said Monday at a Roosevelt University symposium. Cook County has the highest rate of marijuana arrests anywhere in the U.S., according to a study released Monday by Roosevelt's Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy. In 2013, there were nearly 16,000 arrests in Chicago for possession of marijuana and only 1,100 tickets issued. [continues 187 words]
Drug enforcement measures in place for decades have filled jails with poor and minority offenders, marred police officers' credibility in the neighborhoods they patrol and fractured communities, Chicago police Superintendent Garry Mccarthy and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle agreed at a forum Wednesday night. "(Drug use) is a driver of crime, but we have adopted a policy that it is the crime itself," Mccarthy said at Chicago Forward, a panel discussion hosted by the Tribune at the Chase Auditorium downtown. [continues 238 words]
Perhaps a dozen federal prisoners serving time for dealing crack cocaine may be looking forward to an early homecoming. As soon as Monday, changes to federal sentencing guidelines take effect that will likely see a handful of former Northwest Indiana offenders -- perhaps three or four-- go free. The changes, a small move toward reducing a wide disparity between mandatory prison terms for crack dealers and cocaine, have been blasted by Justice Department officials who say the inmates are violent criminals who are likely to return to their criminal ways after their release. [continues 757 words]
