Low-level crime, 'livability' and racial profiling

Despite recent claims by the Star Tribune Editorial Board that prohibiting low-level offenses such as lurking and spiting ensures the "livability" of downtown ("Banish bias, but keep downtown livable," March 23), the data tell a different story. Such ordinances significantly reduce the quality of life for communities of color in Minneapolis — not just in the downtown area, but in heavily policed neighborhoods as well.

The racial gulfs revealed by this data are long-standing and, given the origins of said laws, unsurprising. The historical connection between low-level offenses (e.g. lurking, vagrancy) and racialized policing is well-established. These laws emerged when Slave Codes became Black Codes.

From the outset, they were intended to circumscribe the lives of African-Americans. Low-level and "livability" crimes were central features of the old Jim Crow era, and remain today — in the New Jim Crow era — as pretextual police tools in racial profiling.

Recent reports from the Minnesota ACLU verified yet again, using the Minneapolis Police Department's own data, that blacks are targeted for low-level arrests. (The results were replicated by a new report from the Minneapolis Police Department, which further revealed that when victims or witnesses are involved in reporting, they are overwhelmingly white).

These practices persist despite a substantial literature that documents no racial differences in committing such low-level offenses. It persists too in lieu of an official name such as "stop and frisk" or "broken windows," yet the net effect is the same.

The data revealed that between 2004 and 2012, an African-American was, on average:

• 11.5 times more likely to be arrested than a white individual for marijuana possession;

• 8.86 times more likely to be arrested than a white individual for disorderly conduct;

• 7.54 times more likely to be arrested than a white individual for vagrancy, and

• 16.39 times more likely to be arrested than a white juvenile for curfew/loitering.

In light of these persistent racial gaps, Minneapolis City Council Members Cam Gordon and Blong Yang have announced their intent to introduce the repeal of the city ordinances on lurking and spitting. They noted that lurking "... is one of several low-level offenses police use to target specific neighborhoods and racial groups. Over that six-year period, 59 percent of the people arrested for lurking were black, while 24 percent were white. Meanwhile, 69 percent of the people who called in to report lurking offenses, listed on reports as either victims or witnesses, were white. Just 12 percent were black."

This repeal is supported by the Coalition for Critical Change, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and the Community Justice Project, which recently launched a petition calling for the repeal of all low-level ordinances in the city. (In addition to their use in racial profiling, many such ordinances have been deemed unconstitutionally vague in other jurisdictions). These include: Loitering, lurking, spitting, depositing tobacco, congregating on the street or sidewalk, and juvenile curfew violations.

The city of Minneapolis has stated goals of equity and transparency/accountability in police-community relations. The overpolicing of our communities of color contributes to unequitable outcomes in multiple social arenas, including education and employment. This must be addressed for long overdue progress to be made with regard to our abysmal national ranking on matters of racial equity and opportunity.

Repeal of the outdated and vague ordinances that contribute to racial profiling represents an important step forward in this direction.

Nancy A. Heitzeg is professor of Sociology and Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity at St. Catherine University. William W. Smith IV is a community consultant. They wrote this on behalf of the Coalition for Critical Change.