When it comes to racially lopsided arrest totals, USA Today reports the most remarkable thing about Ferguson, Missouri, might be just how ordinary it is. Police in Ferguson—which erupted into days of racially charged unrest after a white officer killed an unarmed black teen—arrest black people at a rate nearly three times higher than people of other races.
At least 1,581 other police departments across the USA arrest black people at rates even more skewed than in Ferguson, a USA Today analysis of arrest records shows. According to the analysis, Baton Rouge’s arrest rates per 1,000 residents in 2012 also shows blacks were arrested at a rate nearly three times the non-black arrest rate. Nonetheless, an interactive feature on the USA Today website says Baton Rouge’s racial arrest disparity is smaller than the U.S. average. The New Orleans area, however, has a higher than average disparity.
The analysis shows arrest rates by race are lopsided almost everywhere in the country. Only 173 of the 3,538 police departments USA Today examined arrested black people at a rate equal to or lower than other racial groups. Those disparities are easier to measure than they are to explain. They could be a reflection of biased policing; they could just as easily be a byproduct of the vast economic and educational gaps that persist across much of the USA—factors closely tied to crime rates. In other words, experts say, the fact that such disparities exist does little to explain their causes.
“That does not mean police are discriminating. But it does mean it’s worth looking at. It means you might have a problem, and you need to pay attention,” says University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris, a leading expert on racial profiling. Read the full story and see the full interactive feature.
