in One Police District in
Washington, DC
Washington, DC's 4th Police District lies in the shadows of
federal Washington, beginning about one mile north of the White
House on the edge of downtown and cutting a four-mile long swath
through northwest Washington between Rock Creek Park on the west
and North Capitol Street on the east. Home to more than 100,000
of the District's residents, the 4th Police District encompasses
block after endless block of tightly packed row houses and a pair
of commercial corridors -- 14th Street NW and Georgia Avenue NW --
that are only now beginning to rise up from the ravages of the
urban riots that swept the area in 1968. One of the more racially
integrated sections of the city, the 4th Police District is home
to an ever-increasing Hispanic population, as well as a black
working class majority, a significant Vietnamese-American
population, and a number of mostly young whites adventurous enough
to live on the "wrong side" of 16th Street NW, the city's de facto
dividing line between Upper Caucasia and Calcutta on the Potomac.
It is also a favorite police stomping ground in the war on drugs.
Along with sections of predominantly black southeast and northeast
Washington, the 14th St. corridor has for the past thirty years
been the scene of endless street arrests, special police
operations, and drives against open air drug markets. While crime
in the 4th district and the city as a whole dropped from abysmal
levels through most of the 1990s, it is on the increase again.
But a sort of inertia seems to have set in with police and
prosecutors. Day after day, month after month, year after year,
the police respond with a steady drumbeat of drug arrests and
prosecutors run them through the system as if on auto-pilot.
The month between June 15 and July 15 this year was nothing
special, and that is what makes arrest and prosecution figures for
the 4th District that month interesting. The "United States
Attorney's Office Papered Community Prosecution" report is a
snapshot of police and prosecution practices in a major US city in
the midst of the never-ending war on drugs. (In Washington, DC,
all prosecutions are handled through the US Attorney's office,
which decides if cases will be charged under city law or under
federal law.)
Prosecutors in the 4th police district filed 196 criminal charges
between June 15 and July 15, 40 for crimes of violence and 32 for
property crimes. The majority of the violent crimes were simple
assault (23), followed by assault with a deadly weapon (9), and
threatening bodily harm (4). Prosecutors also charged two persons
with armed robbery, one with carjacking while armed, and one with
felony murder. Leading property crimes were unlawful entry (14),
destruction of property (7), and burglary (2), along with a
smattering of fraud, forgery, and arson charges. Other offenses
charged during the period included prostitution (14), weapons
offenses (9), and drunk driving (9).
But a full 36% of all charges filed -- 72, equal to the number of
violent and property crimes combined -- were for drug law
violations. Leading the way was cocaine possession (20 charges),
followed by marijuana possession (15), heroin possession (9),
possession of drug paraphernalia (8), drug distribution (7),
violation of a drug free zone (4), PCP possession (2), and
marijuana distribution (2). By themselves, marijuana prosecutions
constituted 9% of all prosecutions that month in a police district
that averages a rape every two weeks, a murder every two weeks,
two burglaries a day and two assaults a day, and a hundred stolen
cars each month, according to Metropolitan Police records.
"It's nothing unusual, is it?" said Keith Stroup, executive
director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws (http://www.norml.org). "You can take a snapshot at any time
in any state and you'll see we're wasting an enormous amount of
resources and ruining a large number of lives, and almost all of
these people are nonviolent offenders," he told DRCNet. "It seems
that the public debate on marijuana has advanced far enough to
acknowledge the downside of enforcement, but no one has the
courage to do anything about it."
Fourth Police District resident and journalist-photographer Jeremy
Bigwood, who has worked for years on drug reform issues in Latin
America, was more blunt. "This sucks," he told DRCNet. "It's a
waste of my money, it's a waste of police time, it's a complete
waste when we have serious issues to deal with in this city.
Marijuana smokers should not be getting arrested. Maybe if
someone is smoking in the street, you should give them a citation,
but not an arrest. That's just silly."
But it's business as usual in the retail drug war in the nation's
capital, or more precisely, it's business as usual in the war on
drug users. Only seven arrests out of 72 were for distribution of
hard drugs.
================
Washington, DC's 4th Police District lies in the shadows of
federal Washington, beginning about one mile north of the White
House on the edge of downtown and cutting a four-mile long swath
through northwest Washington between Rock Creek Park on the west
and North Capitol Street on the east. Home to more than 100,000
of the District's residents, the 4th Police District encompasses
block after endless block of tightly packed row houses and a pair
of commercial corridors -- 14th Street NW and Georgia Avenue NW --
that are only now beginning to rise up from the ravages of the
urban riots that swept the area in 1968. One of the more racially
integrated sections of the city, the 4th Police District is home
to an ever-increasing Hispanic population, as well as a black
working class majority, a significant Vietnamese-American
population, and a number of mostly young whites adventurous enough
to live on the "wrong side" of 16th Street NW, the city's de facto
dividing line between Upper Caucasia and Calcutta on the Potomac.
It is also a favorite police stomping ground in the war on drugs.
Along with sections of predominantly black southeast and northeast
Washington, the 14th St. corridor has for the past thirty years
been the scene of endless street arrests, special police
operations, and drives against open air drug markets. While crime
in the 4th district and the city as a whole dropped from abysmal
levels through most of the 1990s, it is on the increase again.
But a sort of inertia seems to have set in with police and
prosecutors. Day after day, month after month, year after year,
the police respond with a steady drumbeat of drug arrests and
prosecutors run them through the system as if on auto-pilot.
The month between June 15 and July 15 this year was nothing
special, and that is what makes arrest and prosecution figures for
the 4th District that month interesting. The "United States
Attorney's Office Papered Community Prosecution" report is a
snapshot of police and prosecution practices in a major US city in
the midst of the never-ending war on drugs. (In Washington, DC,
all prosecutions are handled through the US Attorney's office,
which decides if cases will be charged under city law or under
federal law.)
Prosecutors in the 4th police district filed 196 criminal charges
between June 15 and July 15, 40 for crimes of violence and 32 for
property crimes. The majority of the violent crimes were simple
assault (23), followed by assault with a deadly weapon (9), and
threatening bodily harm (4). Prosecutors also charged two persons
with armed robbery, one with carjacking while armed, and one with
felony murder. Leading property crimes were unlawful entry (14),
destruction of property (7), and burglary (2), along with a
smattering of fraud, forgery, and arson charges. Other offenses
charged during the period included prostitution (14), weapons
offenses (9), and drunk driving (9).
But a full 36% of all charges filed -- 72, equal to the number of
violent and property crimes combined -- were for drug law
violations. Leading the way was cocaine possession (20 charges),
followed by marijuana possession (15), heroin possession (9),
possession of drug paraphernalia (8), drug distribution (7),
violation of a drug free zone (4), PCP possession (2), and
marijuana distribution (2). By themselves, marijuana prosecutions
constituted 9% of all prosecutions that month in a police district
that averages a rape every two weeks, a murder every two weeks,
two burglaries a day and two assaults a day, and a hundred stolen
cars each month, according to Metropolitan Police records.
"It's nothing unusual, is it?" said Keith Stroup, executive
director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws (http://www.norml.org). "You can take a snapshot at any time
in any state and you'll see we're wasting an enormous amount of
resources and ruining a large number of lives, and almost all of
these people are nonviolent offenders," he told DRCNet. "It seems
that the public debate on marijuana has advanced far enough to
acknowledge the downside of enforcement, but no one has the
courage to do anything about it."
Fourth Police District resident and journalist-photographer Jeremy
Bigwood, who has worked for years on drug reform issues in Latin
America, was more blunt. "This sucks," he told DRCNet. "It's a
waste of my money, it's a waste of police time, it's a complete
waste when we have serious issues to deal with in this city.
Marijuana smokers should not be getting arrested. Maybe if
someone is smoking in the street, you should give them a citation,
but not an arrest. That's just silly."
But it's business as usual in the retail drug war in the nation's
capital, or more precisely, it's business as usual in the war on
drug users. Only seven arrests out of 72 were for distribution of
hard drugs.
================