Back in the 1960s a phrase often repeated went something like this: "If you're white, you're all right; if you're brown, stick around; if you're black, stay back." This phrase aptly describes how the drug war relates to race when it comes to youth. The most recent data available (2001) support this idea. For instance, looking at national detention rates for juvenile drug offenders the rate (per 100,000) for whites was 3; for Hispanics it was 8; for blacks it was 22. In other words, black youth were more than 7 times more likely to be detained that white youth and almost 3 times more likely than Hispanics. Hispanic youth were almost 3 times more likely than whites to be detained.

Some of you have undoubtedly noticed that the long-running "This Week's Corrupt Cops" feature was missing this week. That's because I didn't have any stories for it. Now, it may have been because there was no corrupt cop news in the past week, but I find that hard to believe given the outstanding record our police have built up over the years.