Racial Disparities in Arrests a Countrywide Problem

USA Today's Brad Heath reports that it's not just Ferguson, Mo., where more blacks get arrested than whites: "At least 1,581 other police departments across the USA arrest black people at rates even more skewed than in Ferguson." For example, more than half of the people arrested in Detroit suburb Dearborn, Mich., are black, but only 4 percent of the city's residents are black. Phillip Goff, president of the University of California Los Angeles' Center for Policing Equity, told Heath the disparities are driven by law enforcement bias and by problems in education and employment.