Pubdate: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH) Copyright: 1999, The Columbus Dispatch Contact: 34 S. Third St., Columbus, OH 43215 Website: http://www.dispatch.com/ Author: Steve Stephens, Dispatch Metro Columnist Cited: The special report by David Harris, 'Driving While Black' is online at: http://www.aclu.org/profiling/report/index.html POLICE ACTIONS BREED CYNICISM AMONG PUBLIC The War on Drugs has become a war on police credibility. Millions of middle- and upper-class Americans laugh at and ignore drug laws, just like they did Prohibition. Thousands of other Americans -- usually young, poor and black -- pay with their freedom or their lives. The cops aren't really to blame. They're just enforcing laws hypocritically promoted by the likes of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. I ingest dangerous, mind-altering substances, but mine are legal: alcohol, caffeine, Big Macs. I don't do them because Al Gore gives them the thumbs up, however, but because I like them. If the government suddenly reinstituted Prohibition or banned all-beef patties, I'd assume "the law is a ass'' and seek illicit sources of ale or special sauce. I'd fear getting caught, but I'd have no moral qualms. Millions of productive, rational adults feel the same way about marijuana or cocaine. Who am I to say a reefer or two on weekends is more dangerous than drinking a six-pack, driving fast or voting Republican? Almost every citizen can agree on laws against fraud, theft, assault, murder or driving while looped. But when millions of citizens believe a law is idiotic, it is. To enforce laws so widely derided, cops -- all over the country -- routinely cross the line from public service to public nuisance. Every time police detain a young black guy for being young and black, every time 100 cars are stopped and searched to find one joint, every time so-called suspicious property is seized just because -- under our bizarre drug laws -- it can be, cynicism grows and respect for law enforcement crumbles, said David Harris, professor of law at the University of Toledo. Harris wrote the widely quoted study "Driving While Black,'' which documents the practice of cops stopping drivers based on race. "A large part of what is going on with these stops is an effort to interdict and find drugs,'' Harris said. The phenomenon is based on the false notion that a greater percentage of blacks do illegal drugs, Harris said. Yet a cop looking to rack up some quick arrests has a rational basis for concentrating on low-income areas, he said. "If I can drive down to an open-air drug market and make 10 arrests, I'm more likely to do that than in some middle-class neighborhood where drug use is going on behind closed doors, where it's more difficult to root out. "What's driving all of this is what's driving policing in general. How does an officer get ahead? By making arrests. Career advancement and financial rewards depend on this kind of activity.'' Although whites make up 81 percent of the population in Franklin County, they accounted for just half of the traffic charges filed in 1997, according to numbers obtained by Harris. A Dispatch analysis of Columbus police crime reports shows that blacks comprised nearly 78 percent of those charged with drug possession or sales from 1993 through 1998. But Columbus police seem no better or worse than police in any other city. The Justice Department's federal lawsuit is especially ludicrous in light of the abuses perpetrated by federal law-enforcement officers. Harris also notes and criticizes such practices as asset forfeiture. "They take the stuff, and they don't have to get a conviction or even make an arrest, for God's sake,'' he said. The abuses have brought together such strange bedfellows as the American Civil Liberties Union and conservative Constitution-thumpers, who are decrying out-of-control law enforcement. "The fact that the police are taking it from all sides would make anyone defensive,'' Harris said. He has tried to persuade cops that ending the drug war, or at least the worst aspects of it, will help them as much as anyone. "Police hold the key to this problem in so many ways,'' he said. "They have a lot to gain and a lot to lose in this issue. "Are there bad guys out there who need to be in jail? You bet. And we depend on police, God bless 'em, to get those bad guys off the street and put them in jail,'' Harris said. "We've got to stop this wave of cynicism and disrespect. "But if we ignore this problem the disrespect will keep growing.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake