Black people in KC disproportionately referred for drug charges, Prosecutor Baker says
Black people are disproportionately referred for drug charges in Jackson County compared to other Kansas Citians, a racial disparity the region’s top prosecutor called “disturbing.”
Despite making up 39% of the population, Black people accounted for 54% of drug suspects referred for charges by Kansas City police from 2017 to September 2020, according to data released Wednesday by the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.
White residents on the other hand were referred for drug charges in 42% of drug cases, while making up 48% of the population.
“It’s pretty disturbing to me,” Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said generally of her office’s analysis, before a community advisory board discussed potential reforms. “This cannot be the most effective way to handle this problem.”
The racial disparity was even greater in “buy bust” cases, in which undercover detectives buy drugs before a dealer is arrested. In 2019, about 80% of those defendants were Black — “more than double of their percentage of their population in Kansas City,” said Henry Chapman, a data analyst in the prosecutor’s office.
Meanwhile, 14% of those suspects were white. Chapman called a presentation slide showing that disparity “pretty startling.”
Justice Gatson, a Kansas City-based organizer with the ACLU of Missouri, described the referral disparities “super problematic.” She called for decriminalizing drugs to keep people out of the system in the first place.
“We have to do things differently,” Gatson said.
Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, said cases submitted to Jackson County prosecutors, as well as the three other prosecutor’s offices in the counties Kansas City touches, are based on documented evidence of criminal activity.
“That is what is considered by officers and investigators when submitting cases for consideration of criminal charges,” Becchina said in an email.
As the city grapples with a record number of homicides this year, with 174 so far, the prosecutor’s office also wanted to know if drug defendants have other cases tied to violence. In 2019, about 25% had such cases within four years, when considering gun crimes or physical violence.
That percentage for defendants charged with delivering drugs was higher at 36%.
In an overwhelming majority of drug possession cases, Kansas City police officers did not find weapons, according to the analysis. In 2017 and 2019, a gun was not recovered in more than 92% of drug possession cases.
Most drug possession cases referred for charges occurred south of Independence Avenue and east of Troost Avenue. The majority of those cases begin with a traffic violation or a minor crime, according to the prosecutor’s office.
In one case that Chapman described as typical, officers in December 2018 stopped a woman, who was not Black, they knew to have a felony warrant for burglary as she walked in the area of Anderson and Topping avenues in the South Indian Mound neighborhood.
When the officers arrested the woman they found a small, clear plastic bag containing methamphetamine that weighed about .57 grams along with a glass pipe, according to a probable cause statement. She then admitted to possessing the drugs.
Another 2.89% of drug defendants referred for charges in Kansas City are Hispanic, though that percentage is likely higher because police agencies at times wrongly classify Hispanic people as white, Chapman said.
Felony drug cases accounted for the largest category of referrals to Jackson County prosecutors from Kansas City police in recent years, the analysis showed. In 2019, 54% of white defendants and 51% of Black ones pleaded guilty as charged.
When talking about reforms, Baker said her office should be concerned about defendants with a “nexus” to violence or a suspect that causes community concern, such as when a drug dealer moves to a street that quickly becomes dangerous.
“’I don’t feel safe getting my kids to and from the car,’” Baker said she has heard residents say in such cases. “’I don’t let my kids play outside. We hear gunshots regularly.’ ... So, I don’t want to dismiss the fact that drugs cause lots of other problems.”
But other than those cases, Baker suggested defendants could get drug treatment directly, instead of going through the current system. Authorities should be looking at which drug defendants cause violence, she said, noting that drug cases are also expensive.
Baker said her concern is it appears “we’ve been fishing with a great big net.”
“But perhaps we should be fishing with a spear,” she said.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 5:26 PM.
