Racial disparity “alive and very well” in Boone County By: Macyn Gillespie

COLUMBIA – Racial profiling – a hot topic in the U.S. recently – is at its highest rate in

Boone County since 2000 according to a recent report.

“We have examples of discrimination all the time,” Mary Ratliff, president of the

local and state NAACP and Boone County resident, said. “Right here in Columbia, right in

Boone County, a lot of racial profiling goes on.”

Every year, the attorney general’s office releases racial disparity reports that detail

stop, search and arrest rates county by county in Missouri. These reports were prompted

by the passage of a state law in 2000 that requires officers to report information like a

driver’s race for every vehicle stop. Then, the law enforcement agency is to turn in that

information to the attorney general’s office, which in turn creates the annual report.

In the most recent data available from 2013, African-Americans are

overrepresented in stops, searches and arrests by the Columbia Police Department as well

as by the Boone County Sherriff’s Department. Interestingly, however, the rate of which

contraband is found during a stop is approximately equivalent between blacks and whites.

The disparity index measures how likely it is that someone of a certain race is to be

stopped based on their proportion of the population aged 16 and older. Values greater than

one would signify overrepresentation, while numbers less than one would show

underrepresentation, according to the attorney general’s website.

In 2013, Boone County Sherriff’s Department’s disparity index for blacks was 3.03

while for whites the number was .85. This was the highest recorded overrepresentation in

13 years. The same year, the disparity index for African-Americans was 2.29 and for whites

it was .91 for the Columbia Police Department, the highest rate since 2007.

The numbers for search and arrest rates mimic this same trend.

According to the same attorney general’s report, of 132,068 residents of Columbia in

2013, 8.3 percent were African Americans while 83.22 percent were white. However the

ratio of blacks to whites in the Boone County Jail in October of this year was about 43

percent black to 51 percent white, according to the Sheriff’s Department website. This is

another clear overrepresentation.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in Missouri the ratio of African-

Americans to whites who are incarcerated is 5.2-to-1. This is slightly below the national

ratio of 5.6 African-Americans to one white person.

One out of every 10 black males in their 30s in the U.S. is in prison or jail according

to The Sentencing Project. Additionally, 60 percent of all people in jail are racial or ethnic

minorities.

But for what reasons are African-Americans still being racially profiled by police?

Public Information Officer Latisha Stroer of the Columbia Police Department said it’s hard

to derive answers from sheer numbers. In order to get more complete findings, the

department goes above and beyond what must be reported to the attorney general.

“We look at geographical area, we would also look at what time of day those stops

are occurring because typically at night you have no idea if it’s a guy or girl, black, white,

Hispanic. I mean you have no idea who you’re stopping when you stop them,” Stroer said.

Stroer also said the department checks for “hotspot” areas, where patrol has been

upped due to higher crime rates. She further explained that when a complaint is called in

and an officer is dispatched, just checking on someone who is in a vehicle must be reported

as a traffic stop.

Jerry East, crime analyst for the police department, said that some people who are

stopped by the department are not included in the census data. For example, more than

30,000 students who attend MU are not counted in Columbia’s population. Drivers passing

through on the interstate and fans in town for sporting events are also not included.

East created a breakdown of stops made in 2010 that examined the location of the

stops. He used demographic information from the census to determine the percentage of

African-Americans living in certain neighborhoods and created a new disparity index based

on the populations of these smaller areas. In many cases, the disparity changed from above

two to approximately one, which would indicate no presence of racial profiling.

“Racial profiling is not an issue for the Columbia Police Department as a whole,” East

said.

None of this kind of data is taken into consideration in the attorney general’s report,

but it also doesn’t explain why the African-Americans who are stopped are arrested at a

higher rate than whites.

Of the 4,199 blacks stopped in 2013, 441 were arrested. That’s an arrest rate of

about 10.5 percent. In contrast, only 417 of the 13,401 white people stopped were arrested

– about 3.1 percent.

Solutions are not simple but are certainly necessary.

“All the African-American community is asking for is to be treated equally, to be

treated with respect when they are stopped and not to be harassed,” Ratliff said.

A Columbia Police Department car sits parked along Highway 63 on Nov. 21, 2014. Data from the attorney general proves African-Americans are more likely to be stopped than whites.

Photo Illustration: MU student Annaliese Nurnberg lights a lighter that could be used to smoke marijuana. Although blacks and whites use marijuana at about the same

rate, African-Americans are three times as likely to be arrested for possession.

SIDEBAR: Aside from being stopped, searched and arrested more than whites,

African-Americans are also more likely to be arrested for nonviolent crimes like marijuana

possession. According to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union, blacks and whites

use marijuana at about the same rate. However, African-Americans are more than three

times as likely to be arrested.

Marijuana possession has very strict punishments that affect the entire lives of

those convicted.

“If you share a joint on a college campus, or even near a college campus it’s ten to

life,” Dan Viets, local attorney and state director of the National Organization for the

Reform of Marijuana Laws, said. “It’s insane. They [marijuana sentences] are worse than

unfair; they just don’t make any sense at all.”

If a person is found with more than 35 grams of marijuana, they are automatically

charged with a felony, and the sentence is up to seven years and a $5,000 fine. However if

that person is found with the same amount within 2,000 feet of a school, the sentence is 10

years to life in prison.

According to a report by the ACLU in 2010, African-Americans made up 11.7

percent of Missouri’s population, yet they accounted for 26.7 percent of the marijuana

arrests that year.

Since the penalties for these crimes are so harsh, African-Americans are put at a

disadvantage for finding future employment, as you must specify on job applications if you

are a convicted felon in some areas.