Excerpts from the article by Victoria Bekiempis: The paper points out that in Ferguson, 86 percent of vehicle stops involved a black motorist, although blacks make up just 67 percent of the population. In addition, blacks stopped in Ferguson are almost twice as likely as whites to be searched (12.1 percent versus 6.9 percent) and twice as likely to be arrested (10.4 percent versus 5.2 percent). Searches of blacks only results in discovery of contraband 21.7 percent of the time, whereas contraband is recovered from their less frequently stopped white counterparts 34.0 percent of the time. Despite Ferguson’s relative poverty, fines and court fees comprise the second largest source of revenue for the city, a total of 2,635,400, according to the ArchCity Defenders report. And in 2013, the Ferguson Municipal Court issued 24,532 arrest warrants and 12,018 cases, or about 3 warrants and 1.5 cases per household. “There are 90 municipalities in St. Louis County that range from 12 people to 50,000 people. Eighty-six of them have their own courts. They have their own police forces,” he explains. “What ends up being the product of all that is just a low-level sense of harassment on a daily basis. The clients that we represent feel that. It’s palpable for them.” “They resent it because it’s not about public safety,” he adds. “These aren’t violent criminals. These are poor people.”
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 06:06:25 +0000
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