From 1997-2007, men were nearly 10x more likely than women to be arrested for marijuana possession in NYC. (x-post /r/PussyPass)

Legolas-the-elf · 2014-08-22T04:30:37+00:00

To save people from making unwarranted assumptions:

My initial reaction is that this is exactly what you would expect to see if police were targeting dealers. Drug dealing is a dangerous activity and it is mostly men that do it. If police were targeting dealers, then you would expect to see these kinds of statistics even assuming no gender bias in policing.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case here. The statistics are only concerned with possession of small amounts of marijuana, and the officers prefer these types of arrests because they are relatively safe. These are stop and search type arrests so officer discretion in who to stop and search can massively bias arrest demographics.

So it does look like these statistics genuinely reflect sexist and racist attitudes amongst the police. From the report:

One young Latino man, who had been caught twice in such narcotics squad nets, told us something that helped explain the gender bias in the arrests. He and his girl friend, dressed up for a party, had purchased several “nickel” ($5) bags of marijuana in a record store. When stopped by the police and told to show what they had, the man took out his one bag, and the woman revealed the two in her purse. The police told the man that if he would say the marijuana was his, they would let his girl friend go. She wanted that and he agreed. He said some friends had the same experience. In this way police can stop and search many couples and yet still wind up with an arrest rate that is 91% male.

One NYPD officer suggested to us that the gender bias in the arrests is in part the result of what he calls “chivalry” on the part of many cops. Many police officers are from solid working-class families and retain some traditional values about gender. They feel more protective and sympathetic to women and are reluctant to subject them to the harshness of the New York jail and criminal justice system. Interesting, the young Black and Latino men stopped by the police feel exactly the same way. As a result, the police offer to let the men “take the weight” is appreciated by the men. We think “chivalry” may indeed be part of what is going on, but there is no doubt that it is often inconvenient and logistically complicated for male police to arrest and book women, and a female officer needs to be located to handle at least some stages of the booking process.

Number357 · 2014-08-22T00:46:59+00:00

Wealthy people and white people were also significantly less likely to be arrested. This is considered a pretty significant class and race issue, and a textbook example of both white privilege and rich-privilege. Yet we see an even more pronounced gender imbalance, and nobody cares.

Grailums · 2014-08-22T10:59:12+00:00

In my criminal justice class the other day we were to examine a ton of "criminal justice theories" and state which one the criminal justice system seems to employ throughout the entire judicial process from profiling to arrest.

I was shocked to shit to see that the "feminist" theory existed and it is EXACTLY what you think it is: men commit crimes for power and commit crimes to oppress women etc. etc. even mentioned patriarchy. Mind you that this was just one of the many theories.

Upon further research there is actually a theory out there called the "chivalry theory" in which the reason why women are not punished as harshly as men is because they are considered "childlike" and "not responsible for their actions".

I stated my case and I am awaiting to see how my instructor views it. Considering I used a few scholarly journals and showed the comparison it should be interesting to see how liberal he is in terms of a response and if I'm called a misogynist for it.

warspite88 · 2014-08-22T12:20:24+00:00

I'll never forget back in like 1999 watching an episode of cops. People were getting busted for drug possession. in one part a man and woman are caught with drugs. the man is sent to jail the woman was let go.

then a female cop comes up and explains that women are victims and that no woman should ever go to jail for drug possession only the men. she said that to the camera without blinking.... it made me realize what a fucked up bigoted misandrist world we live in....no wait at that time i was disgusted but i had no idea how huge misandry and feminism was in the world until the 2000s when i did investigating.

15 years later thanks to the interwebs, more and more people like myself then are waking up to just how stupid our culture has become with hate and injustice toward men and boys. there is little hope

throwaway7145 · 2014-08-22T14:24:06+00:00

You know I have totally seen this. In my white, wealthy, suburban bedroom to a large city community. It's kind of a dumb little thing, but it is important to us. My husband died, and me and my teenage son and daughter have been driving his Lincoln truck. I never drove it before, but now it is emotionally important to us. We keep it exactly the same way it was before he died. Exactly the same way, with the same CD's, and these same stuffed dice hanging on the rear-view mirror. Both I and my (cute, tall, blonde) teenage daughter have been stopped by the police in that truck a number of times. With nothing but a warning. My teenage son comes home with a ticket. For the dice. Apparently they are blocking the windshield, and there is some statute against that. I was stunned. The police never said anything to me about the dice, they never said anything to my daughter, but they give my son a ticket for it??? Yeah, there is something going on here.

P.S. The dice are staying. I don't care if it is irrational, and I don't care if it is (vaguely) illegal. The dice are staying. I'll just pay the tickets.

jimmybrite · 2014-08-22T14:10:27+00:00

Of course, women can do no wrong.

/s

scramtek · 2014-08-22T19:39:04+00:00

It's an old adage but, statistics never lie.
The problem is that we, as humans make decisions based on instinct and anecdotal evidence. Even when irrefutable facts are presented, we still tend to think we know better as individuals.
Freakonomics is a very interesting study into this phenomena. The book is better than the documentary.

This helps explains cognitive bias towards the continued perfection of men in general, and non-white men in particular.

The real deciding factor is that politicians, who are presented with scientific data, continue to support this dissonance simply because it buys votes.

engineeringiscool · 2014-08-22T03:19:30+00:00

You guys really are a classy bunch, seeing you x-post things from a subreddit called "pussypass".

Title	From 1997-2007, men were nearly 10x more likely than women to be arrested for marijuana possession in NYC. (x-post /r/PussyPass)
Author	Number357
Upvotes	51
Comments	19
Date	August 22, 2014 12:45 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2e8feg/from_19972007_men_were_nearly_10x_more_likely/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/from-1997-2007-men-were-nearly-10x-more-likely.996651 https://theredarchive.com/post/996651

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