WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Blacks in the United States have been arrested on drug charges at higher rates than whites for nearly three decades, a study indicates.
Human Rights Watch said blacks are arrested at higher rates even though they engage in drug crimes at rates comparable to whites.
Using data obtained from the FBI, the group said in a 20-page report there is a persistence of racial disparities in U.S. law enforcement's approach to drugs.
The report, "Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States," said adult African-Americans were arrested on drug charges at rates that were 2.8 to 5.5 times as high as those of white adults in every year from 1980 through 2007, the last year for which complete data were available.
The report said about one in three adult drug arrestees during that period was black.
"Jim Crow may be dead, but the drug war has never been color-blind," said Jamie Fellner, senior counsel with Human Rights Watch US Program and author of the report. "Although whites and blacks use and sell drugs, the heavy hand of the law is more likely to fall on black shoulders."
