Minority Men Are Given Fewer Opportunities For Drug Treatment Instead Of Jail Time

Rush Limbaugh's drug arrest information screen captured from the Palm Beach
County Sheriff's Office Booking Blotter. Limbaugh got drug treatment, not jail.
(Screen captured by Scotto Bear)

By Andrew Breiner
In California’s court system, black men are significantly less likely than white men to be offered treatment instead of prison time when arrested for drug-related offenses, according to a study in the American Journal of Public Health. And that’s even after California’s Proposition 36, a ballot initiative that passed in 2000, made it easier to divert nonviolent drug offenders to treatment with probation.

The study found that black men are 27 percent less likely, and Hispanic men 16 percent less likely than white men to be diverted to drug treatment instead of prison. That’s after controlling for differences in criminal history and the offenses involved in each arrest, before which disparities were even larger.

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