This is an update to the June 16, 2020 report published by the ACLU-DC and ACLU Analytics, Racial Disparities in Stops by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. The original report analyzed five months of data collected pursuant to the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act on stops conducted by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) from July 22, 2019 to December 31, 2019.
This update analyzes the stops conducted by MPD between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. The 2020 stops data show that MPD continues to disproportionately stop and search Black people in the District. The stark racial disparities present in the 2019 stop data have not changed. The 2020 data, like the 2019 data, support community members’ repeated assertions that MPD’s stop practices unfairly overpolice the Black community and require serious scrutiny and structural change.
Black people in the District of Columbia were arrested for marijuana possession at eight times the rate of white people in 2010 (the most recent year for which figures are available), despite comparable marijuana usage rates, according to data compiled by the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital. These and other figures are illustrated in stark detail in a new report issued today, focusing on marijuana enforcement in the District. This release comes on the heels of a nationwide report, Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests, released June 2 by the American Civil Liberties Union. A new webpage at the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital website features an interactive map of the District of Columbia showing every arrest for marijuana possession in 2010 by location, and showing the race, sex, and age of the person arrested.
