> Likewise, whites are more likely to use low-penalty drugs like hallucinogens, and blacks are more likely to use high-penalty drugs like crack cocaine
This raises a question about why drugs that whites are more likely to use are penalized less severely than drugs that blacks are more likely to use.
>It would be nice to say that this shows the criminal justice system is not disproportionately harming blacks, but unfortunately it doesn’t come anywhere close to showing anything of the sort. There are still many ways it can indirectly harm blacks without being explicitly racist. Anatole France famously said that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich as well as poor people from begging for bread and sleeping under bridges”, and in the same way that the laws France cites, be they enforced ever so fairly, would still disproportionately target poor people, so other laws can, even when fairly enforced, target black people. The classic example of this is crack cocaine – a predominantly black drug – carrying a higher sentence than other whiter drugs. Even if the police are scrupulously fair in giving the same sentence to black and white cokeheads, the law will still have a disproportionate effect.
But note that this supports very different conclusions from what you'd think only knowing that blacks have higher penalty rates. Is it racist laws, or racist policemen? The response to each is going to be different; e.g. giving policemen "diversity training" or something only helps if they were the problem.
This raises a question about why drugs that whites are more likely to use are penalized less severely than drugs that blacks are more likely to use.
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