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<a href="/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/17/MNGF8N04MD1.htm">HIGH
BLACK ARREST RATE RAISES CALL FOR INQUIRY <br>
<dd>Range of explanations offered by experts, officials for S.F.'s
disparity with other cities</a> <br>
</b>
<dd><font size=1>- <a href="mailto:ssward@sfchronicle.com">Susan Sward,
Chronicle Staff Writer</a><br>
<dd>Sunday, December 17, 2006<br><br>
</font>
<dd><font size=3>San Francisco police arrest African Americans for
serious crime at a much higher rate than officers in California's other
biggest cities. <br><br>
<dd>Black people in San Francisco are arrested for felonies at nearly
twice the rate they are in Sacramento. They are arrested at twice the
rate of black people in Fresno, three times the rate in San Jose, Los
Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego, and four times the rate in Oakland.
<br><br>
<dd>The disparity between San Francisco's black felony arrest rates and
the seven other largest cities' -- measured by the number of African
Americans arrested per 1,000 black residents -- is so large that many
experts and civic leaders who reviewed the numbers said they are
"disturbing" and require an investigation. <br><br>
<dd>The numbers prompt several questions, all of which basically boil
down to this: Is the high arrest rate of African Americans because of the
way the San Francisco Police Department does its policing, or because of
criminal activity within the community? <br><br>
<dd>Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong said they do not
think the department is going after African Americans in an unfair
manner. They also said they were consulting experts to try to learn why
the arrest numbers look the way they do. <br><br>
<dd>Newsom said he found the numbers "outrageous'' but was not
shocked by them because of the time he has spent attempting to tackle the
root causes of poverty. <br><br>
<dd>"There is no question in my mind that this deserves immediate
attention and investigation, and I will be doing that,'' Newsom said. He
said the investigation would be conducted by a University of South
Florida criminologist, Lorie Fridell, who will "do aggressive data
analysis'' of the arrest numbers and report back to him and Fong in about
two months. <br><br>
<dd>While Fong said the arrest numbers merit review, she suggested that
the disparity exists in part because the perception that sometimes San
Francisco is "soft on crime'' may draw criminals from out of the
city who feel they can come here and "not be held accountable.''
<br><br>
<dd>Fong's staff said they hand-counted arrests made by the Tenderloin
Task Force last year and found that more than 60 percent of the African
Americans arrested were listed on booking cards as "no local"
-- a term often applied to transients -- or gave addresses outside San
Francisco. The department does not have similar data for other districts
besides the Tenderloin, which police looked at because they believe many
nonresidents are involved in drug dealing and other crimes there.
<br><br>
<dd>San Francisco officers arrest criminal suspects as they find them,
not based on the color of their skin, Fong said. <br><br>
<dd>"I don't think just by looking at the numbers, you can prove or
disprove that there is any targeting,'' she said, adding that factors
such as repeat offenders and out-of-town criminals influence the numbers.
<br><br>
<dd>Others who reviewed the numbers for The Chronicle found them
startling. <br><br>
<dd>"What is significant about these numbers is that they beg
serious attention,'' said San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.
"These numbers are clearly based on a legitimate collection of data
and are not based on emotional cries.'' <br><br>
<dd>Merrick Bobb, a nationally recognized expert in police practices,
said the city must look harder to explain the numbers. <br><br>
<dd>"The strongly disparate impact of San Francisco policing on
African Americans begs for a convincing set of reasons based solidly on
empirical fact,'' said Bobb, who heads a nonprofit organization in Los
Angeles that advises departments nationwide. <br><br>
<dd>"The SFPD, to date, has not persuasively explained what
legitimate factors cause San Francisco to have felony arrest patterns so
different'' from the state's other biggest cities, Bobb said. <br><br>
<dd>Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who runs the city's jails and has tracked
their racial composition for years, said his lockup population reflects
the black arrest rate. "The disparity is just incredibly dramatic,''
he said. "If you are an adult white male, your chances of being in
my jail are 1 in 365, and if you are an adult black male, your chances
are 1 in 23.'' <br><br>
<dd>The Chronicle began examining the city's black felony arrest rate
after its investigation of the department's use of force, published in
February, found officers were arresting African Americans and reporting
use of force on them at rates about five times greater than their
presence in the city's population. <br><br>
<dd>San Francisco police cited several factors they say contribute to
African Americans accounting for about half of all felony arrests in the
city, where they are less than 8 percent of the population. In 2005, 1
out of 3 arrests of black people involved narcotics. <br><br>
<dd>Officers interviewed by The Chronicle said most of the dealers coming
from out of town by BART or car to sell drugs -- primarily crack cocaine
and sometimes methamphetamine -- are African Americans. Moreover, said
Capt. Timothy Hettrich, head of the narcotics division, black drug
dealers often sell out in the open on street corners, thus increasing
their chances for arrest. <br><br>
<dd>Fong also has said that some of the offenders are arrested time and
again, thereby increasing the black arrest numbers. <br><br>
<dd>Also, she said, the department has had to devote a lot of resources
to combatting gangs of youths responsible for many of the city's
black-on-black homicides. William Whitfield, an African American officer
who has worked in the department for more than a decade, said factors
such as out-of-town criminals do affect arrests. <br><br>
<dd>"I've seen that with my own eyes -- I got a guy once with an
automatic weapon around his neck on a shoestring coming off of BART,''
Whitfield said. "He had the weapon under his jacket, and I was
buying dope undercover. I saw him walk up from BART, and when they moved
in and arrested him and the crew he was working with, they found the
weapon. He was an Oakland guy.'' <br><br>
<dd>Whitfield said many black criminals today quickly resort to violence
and this occurs at a younger and younger age. People are "selling
dope in the Sunset, don't get me wrong, but they aren't shooting each
other over it, and they are out in the Bayview and the Fillmore. It's not
all about dope and gangs, either, because you've got that everywhere.
Sometimes a shooting is a personal beef, sometimes it's jealousy,
sometimes it's as simple as, 'You were looking at my girlfriend.' ''
<br><br>
<dd>'Disturbing' numbers <br><br>
<dd>Many experts acknowledge that the factors Fong and her officers cite
may contribute to the city's black arrest rate. They also note that in
cities throughout America, African Americans are arrested in numbers that
exceed their presence in the population. <br><br>
<dd>But they say the black arrest rate in San Francisco is so much higher
than other California cities that the disparity cannot be explained
completely by the factors cited by police. <br><br>
<dd>"America's criminal justice system disproportionately affects
African Americans, and San Francisco is no exception,'' said Bobb, the
police practices expert. "What stands out in this city is the degree
of disproportion, which is higher than what I've seen elsewhere on the
West Coast.'' <br><br>
<dd>Joseph Marshall, a member of the San Francisco Police Commission and
co-founder of the Omega Boys Club who has worked with at-risk youth for
decades, said he knows the Police Department has made a concerted effort
to combat black gang violence "to reduce the homicides, and those
numbers are down.'' <br><br>
<dd>But he added: "These numbers on arrest rates are disturbing and
scream for an explanation. Is there something going on within the SFPD
that makes the numbers so different?'' <br><br>
<dd>James Bell, executive director of the San Francisco-based W. Haywood
Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity, has been
wrestling for years with Marshall's question. About 60 percent of
juveniles detained in the city are black. <br><br>
<dd>"If you are an intelligent, caring person in San Francisco, you
should be disquieted that in a supposedly liberal city, black youths are
so much in the overwhelming majority among the detainees,'' Bell said.
"The numbers are just too disparate for anyone to credibly advance
the 'you-do-the-crime, you-do-the-time' syndrome as an explanation. To
believe these numbers, you'd have to believe that white kids in places
like the Haight and the Sunset are basically doing no crime.'' <br><br>
<dd>Hettrich, who heads the narcotics division, says numbers don't convey
what police confront. <br><br>
<dd>"The real story is we go after the drugs, and we go where we
have had complaints,'' Hettrich said in a ride-along interview where he
pointed out drug dealing hot spots around the city and the high numbers
of African Americans and Latinos making sales. "Those arrest numbers
may indicate we are doing a good job in areas where we have had
complaints. <br><br>
<dd>"Color means nothing to us,'' Hettrich said. "We are
prejudiced against dealers." <br><br>
<dd>David Dockery, an African American officer who walks a beat in the
predominantly black Hunters Point housing projects, said most citizens
"want more of us out there. If I could stand in front of their
houses all day long, that's what they'd like.'' <br><br>
<dd>Dockery and his African American partner, Officer Mike Robinson, said
the department's crime chasing is "color blind.'' They also said
what many officers believe -- that criminals are drawn to San Francisco
because they feel that if caught, their punishment in the courts will be
lighter than it would be in surrounding counties. "We know a guy
with four cases pending,'' Robinson said. "Where does this stop?''
<br><br>
<dd>Answers, not speculation <br><br>
<dd>San Francisco's high black arrest rate is not of recent origin: 20
years ago, San Francisco was making black felony arrests at a rate much
higher than California's seven other largest cities, state Justice
Department reports show. In 1986, for example, San Francisco's black
felony arrest rate was almost 45 percent greater than Los Angeles' and
almost 51 percent higher than Oakland's. <br><br>
<dd>In the decades since then, San Francisco's black felony arrest rate
has climbed by more than 35 percent while the other seven major
California cities' rates have dropped -- often by a considerable amount.
During those 20 years, Los Angeles' black felony arrest rate dropped by
more than 36 percent and Oakland's declined by more than 52 percent.
<br><br>
<dd>When evaluating why San Francisco's black arrest numbers are so
different from the other cities', Bobb said speculation is not
productive. <br><br>
<dd>"It is not helpful, in the absence of thorough research and hard
evidence, for the SFPD merely to speculate as to possible reasons, just
as it is unproductive for others to speculate that there must be police
antipathy to African Americans," Bobb said. <br><br>
<dd>A second review was conducted at The Chronicle's request by Samuel
Walker, a criminal justice professor emeritus from the University of
Nebraska, Omaha, who has consulted with the U.S. Justice Department on
matters ranging from police use of force to questions of race-based civil
rights violations by police agencies. <br><br>
<dd>Walker concluded that San Francisco police are targeting black people
in their law enforcement efforts. To him, the numbers indicate that
"many law-abiding citizens" are confronted by officers
"solely because of their skin color." <br><br>
<dd>"No other factor than race could possibly explain the San
Francisco arrest data given the fact that they are so far out of line
compared with other departments,'' Walker said. <br><br>
<dd>Two figures in San Francisco's criminal justice system expressed
similar conclusions. <br><br>
<dd>Public Defender Jeff Adachi said that he does not believe the
department has a go-after-black-suspects plan, but he added that by
focusing on heavily black neighborhoods plagued by crime and violence,
police inevitably drive black arrest numbers up and often use those high
numbers as proof they are in the right spots to catch the criminals.
<br><br>
<dd>"I believe that the San Francisco Police Department has focused
its efforts, in terms of 'crime crackdowns,' in those neighborhoods where
there is a high concentration of blacks -- the Western Addition,
Tenderloin, Visitacion Valley, Potrero Hill, Ingleside Terrace and
Bayview-Hunters Point,'' he said. "This has long been the trend
since the crack cocaine epidemic, when task forces were formed to focus
buy-bust operations in those neighborhoods.'' <br><br>
<dd>Sheriff Hennessey said the problem does not just lie with the police.
<br><br>
<dd>"I think this is a reflection of institutionalized racism: You
are more likely to get arrested for the same act if you're black, you are
more likely to be retained in jail for the same crime if you are black,
and society is more likely to care less about your incarceration if you
are black," Hennessey said. <br><br>
<dd>Officers in the department said they go where the crime and violence
is happening. <br><br>
<dd>Mikail Ali and Toney Chaplin, African American inspectors in the gang
task force, said police concentrate their efforts on areas where violence
is occurring. <br><br>
<dd>"African American youth are shooting each other at a rate far
greater than other groups, so we try to get those kids on some charge if
we can't get them on a homicide,'' Chaplin said. Ali added: "Social
neglect by the community, government and business have caused
environments populated predominantly by black people to be conducive to
crime and violence, and law enforcement ends up having to deal with the
bottom line -- young black kids killing one another at a disproportionate
rate.'' <br><br>
<dd>The community perception <br><br>
<dd>Chief Fong says officers are taught to treat all citizens equally.
Police Academy recruits are given 52 hours of training -- more than twice
the state requirement -- on discrimination and cultural diversity as it
relates to African Americans, and other races and segments of society,
including gays and lesbians, seniors and the homeless. <br><br>
<dd>But in San Francisco's black neighborhoods, many believe police give
them special attention. <br><br>
<dd>At the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center -- a hub of activity for
African American youths living in the Western Addition -- Executive
Director George Smith says he is blunt with young people about what he
believes they face. <br><br>
<dd>"I tell young kids that you shouldn't break the law because this
is a system so poised to arrest young African American males,'' Smith
said. <br><br>
<dd>Guy Hudson, who works two jobs as a city athletics coach and as a
security guard, knows many of the kids in black neighborhoods all over
town, and he said that many black people believe they often can
"talk things over'' with police in San Francisco when that wouldn't
work in Oakland, Santa Clara or Daly City. <br><br>
<dd>Even so, Hudson says, it's a reality that police focus on black
people in San Francisco. He recalls the time three officers stopped him
in Hunters Point after he "drove down a hill a little fast'' and
they emerged from their car "pointing guns at my head.'' <br><br>
<dd>Hudson, 42, said he asked them, "Out in the avenues, would you
be jumping out of your car with an automatic machinegun?'' <br><br>
<dd>The police eventually let him go. Before they drove off, Hudson said,
one of them told him that someone recently had fired shots at an officer
on Harbor Road. Hudson said he responded: "That gives you the right
to pull pistols on everyone in the community?'' <br><br>
<dd>Police Commissioner Marshall, who is African American, wrote a book,
"Street Soldier," in which he described the deep-seated
antipathy black people hold for police. "There's not a black person
I know who doesn't see the police as an occupying force in the community.
At the same time, though, I'm convinced that if black folks stopped
blowing each other's brains out, they'd be in a much better position to
deal with police issues.'' <br><br>
<dd>However, there are African Americans who approve of the way officers
conduct themselves in their neighborhoods. <br><br>
<dd>Al Harris, who lives in the Ingleside and works as an organizer for
the Safety Network group, which is funded by the Mayor's Office of
Criminal Justice, says police often have to confront a "pretty rough
world -- you go into neighborhoods and you're hated. In some
neighborhoods, it's instilled from when kids are little that the police
are the enemy.'' <br><br>
<dd>"I think the police are doing a pretty good job,'' Harris added.
"I know officers who do all kinds of good stuff for the kids,
participating in community events, giving toys at Christmas, hundreds of
turkeys at Thanksgiving.'' <br><br>
<dd>Asked about whether it appears that police are targeting black people
for arrest, Harris said: "Definitely not. There's no need to target
the African American kids. They're the ones out on the streets selling
the drugs.'' <br><br>
<dd>Earlier study <br><br>
<dd>The numbers revealing the high arrest rate of black people in the
city are not the first statistical indication that African Americans get
special police attention. <br><br>
<dd>In 2002 the American Civil Liberties Union issued a report, "A
Department in Denial: The San Francisco Police Department's Failure To
Address Racial Profiling,'' which found black motorists were more than
three times as likely to be searched as whites after a traffic stop.
<br><br>
<dd>That year San Francisco police arrested black people for felonies at
the department's highest rate in the years reviewed by The Chronicle --
171 for every 1,000 African Americans in the city's population. <br><br>
<dd>The next year, the department adopted a new general order
establishing its commitment to "unbiased policing'' and stating
officers "must be able to articulate specific facts and
circumstances that support reasonable suspicion or probable cause'' for
detaining, stopping, arresting and searching citizens or seizing their
property. <br><br>
<dd>The black arrest rate began to drop. In 2003 it was 150 per 1,000, in
2004 it was 146, and in 2005 it was 145. Even in that last year, though,
the rate was three times higher than Los Angeles, San Jose, Long Beach
and San Diego and four times higher than Oakland. <br><br>
<dd>Search for explanation <br><br>
<dd>Looking at the 2000 U.S. census to try to find possible reasons for
the arrest rate, The Chronicle found some similarities and some
differences between San Francisco and the seven other cities. <br><br>
<dd>Like black residents of those other cities, San Francisco African
Americans' median household income lags considerably behind that of the
city's total population, and their level of education is also typically
years behind that of the total population. <br><br>
<dd>Police Commissioner Marshall says answers that might seem at least
part of the explanation -- such as poverty, lack of education and the
flight of large numbers of middle-class black residents from the city in
recent decades -- end up providing no real guidance, because those
patterns are found in other cities where the arrest rates are far lower.
<br><br>
<dd>In two ways, though, San Francisco does stand out: During the 1990s,
the city's African American population declined faster than in any other
major U.S. city, dropping by 23 percent, according to 2000 census
figures. <br><br>
<dd>The black percentage of population also dropped in Oakland, San Jose,
Los Angeles and San Diego. In Fresno, Long Beach and Sacramento, it rose
somewhat. Today San Francisco, which is 7.8 percent African American, has
the second smallest proportion of black people among the state's eight
biggest cities. San Jose, with 3.5 percent, has the smallest, and
Oakland, with almost 36 percent, has the largest. <br><br>
<dd>A second difference involved unemployment numbers. While African
Americans in all the cities had high unemployment numbers, only in San
Francisco was their unemployment rate -- 6.2 percent -- more than double
that of the rest of the population. <br><br>
<dd>Need for investigation <br><br>
<dd>Walker, the Nebraska criminal justice professor, said San Francisco's
high black arrest rate should be investigated by the U.S. Justice
Department and the state attorney general's office. <br><br>
<dd>Fong said she did not feel the need for a state or U.S. Justice
Department investigation of San Francisco's black felony arrest rate.
Instead, she said she was consulting with outside experts and plans a
review of department policies to see if changes are warranted. <br><br>
<dd>She added that the department's efforts to analyze its arrest record
are made difficult by the fact its record keeping system is being
overhauled and she can't "go to a computer right now and pull up
arrest data with all this information you have spoken about.'' <br><br>
<dd>Newsom said while he is convinced there is no "significant
racial profiling in our department,'' he cannot "in good conscience
defend the disparity'' between San Francisco and other cities' black
arrest rates. Referring to the arrest numbers, he said, "On face
value, they are outrageous.'' <br><br>
<dd>The mayor added that as he has worked to push programs tackling
concentrated poverty in the city, such as a tax credit for working
families, he has concluded "the issues of crime for me are
overwhelmingly correlated with issues of poverty.'' <br><br>
<dd>Newsom added that Fridell, the University of South Florida associate
professor of criminology selected by the city to review its arrest data,
was picked in part because she has special expertise in the area of
racial profiling. <br><br>
<dd>One way or another, San Francisco has to discover why it is arresting
black citizens at a higher rate than the other California cities, said
Bobb, the Los Angeles police practices expert. <br><br>
<dd>What is at stake is the concept of equal treatment under the law, he
said. <br><br>
<dd>"The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution prohibits
selective enforcement of the law based on considerations such as race,''
Bobb said. "Courts across the country have ruled that using
impermissible racial classifications in determining whom to stop, detain
and search violates the equal protection clause.'' <br><br>
<dd>Walker, the law enforcement expert who has consulted for the Justice
Department, says the San Francisco Police Department "should be
looking at its own operation to see if there's anything it could be doing
differently.'' <br><br>
<dd>The equal protection under law guarantee of the 14th Amendment is
"the bedrock of all civil rights laws in the United States and a
fundamental principle upon which our country is based,'' he said.
<br><br>
<dd>Jack Jacqua, who founded the Omega Boys Club with Marshall, said the
policing of black people in San Francisco is a problem for the city and
its leaders. <br><br>
<dd>While he acknowledged that police have "the most dangerous,
difficult job in America,'' he said they "most times treat poor kids
from the hood differently than they do more affluent kids.'' <br><br>
<dd>Jacqua, who has devoted his life to working with at-risk youths,
added that many black youths come from "a population where there is
virtually no middle class because the middle class people can't afford to
live here, and many of these youngsters end up in the criminal justice
system.'' <br><br>
<dd>It works this way, Jacqua said: If a kid shoplifts in the Sunset
District, police are probably going to call Mom and Dad and have them
take their child home. "But if you shoplift downtown and your
address is in the Bayview, then they will take you to jail.'' <br><br>
<dd>As for the black community, he said much of it "is a mess --
it's destroying itself. Not enough people are involved in standing up and
challenging these youngsters to take responsibility for their lives.
Where is the leadership?'' <br><br>
<dd>And what of the city's liberal political establishment that has
reigned for many years? <br><br>
<dd>"The bottom line," said Jacqua, "is that poor blacks
are in the way of what this city wants to be, though the city won't admit
it because 'we're liberal and believe in diversity.' But the city really
doesn't want poor folks and especially poor black folks.'' <br>
<hr>
<dd>VOICES: From double standards to police strategy to social factors,
there's no tidy explanation <br><br>
<dd>Heather Fong, San Francisco police chief: "I support the
crime-fighting efforts of the officers of this department, who day after
day, under challenging and perilous circumstances, work tirelessly to
protect the people of San Francisco, and do so in an impartial
manner." <br><br>
<dd>Victoria Gray, social worker for the nonprofit Family Service Agency:
"If you are out here black, selling drugs and your pockets full of
drugs and you get busted and holler 'Racism!' -- that's not racism. ...
Of course there's racism. This is America. But everything isn't linked to
racism. ... You have to understand all our men want is a piece of the
American pie, the American dream. I don't blame them for wanting some of
the pie, but I blame them for how they go about it." <br><br>
<dd>Damone Hale, member of the San Francisco Juvenile Probation
Commission and an attorney who has represented many young African
Americans: "You see officers whose talk is rude and disrespectful,
and time and again the only distinguishing factors we could find is that
the defendant is African American. It's consistent and this treatment is
permitted by our society." <br><br>
<dd>Arlene Ackerman, former San Francisco school superintendent now
teaching at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York City:
"I believe that race in San Francisco is the elephant in the room
and people refuse to talk about it and if you bring it up, then you are
the racist. I felt more uncomfortable as a black person in San Francisco
than I have felt in any other city. ... Someone has to be courageous and
step up and address the issue of race in the city, starting in the
education system and moving through the criminal justice system.''
<br><br>
<dd>Delores Jones-Brown, a former prosecutor who is interim director of
the Center on Race, Crime and Justice at the City University of New
York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice: "Typically when we see
disproportionate arrest rates for African Americans or other minorities,
it is because the police have focused their forces or hot-spot policing
on areas with large minority populations. What is the harm of targeting?
Innocent people who are unfortunate enough to live in economically
depressed neighborhoods aren't given the same measure of constitutional
rights as their more affluent counterparts: They are stopped and frisked,
have their cars and persons searched even without permission -- simply by
virtue of where they live. It's unacceptable." <br><br>
<dd>William Whitfield, officer who joined the San Francisco Police
Department in 1994: "If I had to put my finger on one thing, it's
the homes. I look at the kids on the corners, and 9 times out of 10
there's no dad and maybe 7 times out of 10 there's no mom in their lives
and they are being raised by an aunt or grandma. Kids aren't being raised
as I was -- there's just not that accountability in the homes. If they
had someone at home they knew they had to answer to, that would stop a
whole lot of it.'' <br><br>
<dd>Tim Nichols, ex-San Francisco police officer, on the high black
arrest rate: "It comes from the fact the majority of officers who
want to take on criminals are in the Bayview and the Fillmore, which are
heavily black. I don't believe it's racism. ... Officers have to pick and
choose the severity of the crime they want to spend their time on, and
officers who make a lot of arrests generally go after hard-core
criminals." He also said black drug dealers are particularly
visible: "How often do you see a group of whites standing on the
street corner selling narcotics? Generally whites don't sell on the
corner." <br><br>
<dd>Sharen Hewitt, director of the Community Leadership Academy and
Emergency Response project, which helps connect low-income clients with
services, said when she has watched what happens on a Friday night on
Union Street where the crowds are predominantly white, she finds
"kids tearing up, fighting, smoking marijuana, drinking in the
streets, guys being abusive to women, young men publicly urinating, and I
don't see a whole lot of them being arrested. Some of these behaviors are
developmentally appropriate, but I don't think African American young men
get the luxury of having errors." <br>
<hr>
<dd>Chronicle librarian Kathleen Rhodes contributed to this report.
E-mail Susan Sward at
<a href="mailto:ssward@sfchronicle.com">ssward@sfchronicle.com</a>.</i>
<br><br>
</font>
<dd><pre>African American arrests in California's largest cities
<dd>
<dd>
<dd>African Americans are involved in a disproportionately high number of
arrests
<dd>in all of California's largest cities, compared with their
population, but the
<dd>disparity is greatest in San Francisco.
<dd>
Overall Black arrest
<dd>
Black
Black arrests arrest rate rate
(arrests
<dd> pct.
of
Total
Pct. of arrests per per 1,000
<dd> Year population arrests
Number total 1,000 pop.) black
pop.)
<dd> San Francisco
<dd> 2005
7.8% 17,495
8,803 50.3%
23
<dd> 145
<dd> 2004
7.8
17,696 8,854 50.0
23 146
<dd> 2003
7.8
18,780 9,056 48.2
24 150
<dd> 2002
7.8 20,660
10,322 50.0
27 171
<dd> 1986
12.7
18,544 9,246 49.9
27 107
<dd> Oakland
<dd> 2005
35.7
6,210 4,867 78.4
16
34
<dd> 2004
35.7
7,172 5,548 77.4
18
39
<dd> 2003
35.7
7,640 6,087 79.7
19
43
<dd> 2002
35.7
9,043 7,178 79.4
23
50
<dd> 1986
47.0 13,363
11,325 84.7
39
71
<dd> San Jose
<dd> 2005
3.5
11,813 1,253 10.6
13
40
<dd> 2004
3.5
10,674 1,246 11.7
12
40
<dd> 2003
3.5
11,548 1,303 11.3
13
42
<dd> 2002
3.5
11,533 1,343 11.6
13
43
<dd> 1986
4.6
9,880 1,489 15.1
16
52
<dd> Sacramento
<dd> 2005
15.5
11,978 5,119 42.7
29
81
<dd> 2004
15.5
11,475 4,784 41.7
28
76
<dd> 2003
15.5
9,535 3,916 41.1
23
62
<dd> 2002
15.5
8,695 3,747 43.1
21
60
<dd> 1986
13.4
7,800 3,421 43.9
28
93
<dd> Fresno
<dd> 2005
8.4
11,080 2,443 22.0
26
68
<dd> 2004
8.4
10,528 2,386 22.7
25
67
<dd> 2003
8.4
9,744 2,103 21.6
23
59
<dd> 2002
8.4
9,418 2,054 21.8
22
57
<dd> 1986
9.8
6,350 1,591 25.1
29
75
<dd> Los Angeles
<dd> 2005
11.2 51,898
19,450 37.5
14
47
<dd> 2004
11.2 51,696
19,147 37.0
14
46
<dd> 2003
11.2 48,491
17,980 37.1
13
43
<dd> 2002
11.2 43,991
15,894 36.1
12
38
<dd> 1986
17.0 79,099
37,335 47.2
27
74
<dd> Long Beach
<dd> 2005
14.9
8,923 3,435 38.5
19
50
<dd> 2004
14.9
8,827 3,467 39.3
19
51
<dd> 2003
14.9
8,766 3,430 39.1
19
50
<dd> 2002
14.9
7,766 3,099 39.9
17
45
<dd> 1986
11.2
8,591 2,421 28.2
24
60
<dd> San Diego
<dd> 2005
7.9
17,586 4,749 27.0
14
49
<dd> 2004
7.9
17,864 4,879 27.3
15
51
<dd> 2003
7.9
17,163 4,547 26.5
14
47
<dd> 2002
7.9
15,673 4,311 27.5
13
45
<dd> 1986
8.9
16,959 5,833 34.4
19
75
<dd>
<dd> Sources: State Department of Justice; U.S. Census 1980 and
2000 (Note:
<dd>Decennial census data were used rather than yearly surveys because
they are
<dd>more comprehensive.) Census data compiled and researched by Chronicle
librarian
<dd>Kathleen Rhodes.
<dd> The Chronicle
<dd>
</pre>
<dd><font size=3>Page A - 1 <br>
<dd>URL:
<a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/17/MNGF8N04MD1.DTL">
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/17/MNGF8N04MD1.DTL</a>
<br>
<br>
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