Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) last week issued new guidelines for arresting or issuing warnings to marijuana possessors that would create a "three-strikes" rule for repeat offenders, but give officers discretion on whether or not to arrest teenage offenders. The move comes nearly four years after Britain reclassified marijuana as a less-serious Class C drug, giving officers the discretion to either arrest or issue warnings.

Members of European Parliament Chris Davies (UK) and Marco Cappato (Italy) after cannabis civil disobedience arrest, Manchester police station, December 2001 (radicalparty.org/antiprohibition/brief.htm)

But for people who have not had two previous cannabis warnings, ACPO said, "A police officer finding a person aged 18 or over in possession of a substance that they can identify as cannabis and who is satisfied that the drug is intended for that person's own use should not normally need to arrest the person."

At the same time, the ACPO guidelines said police could find "less intrusive ways" of dealing with teens caught with marijuana than arresting them. The group suggested that officers take the kid home to his parents and keep a record of the incident.

A similar "three-strikes" policy was considered by ACPO in 2002, but scrapped before the warning system was put in place. This latest guidance from ACPO responds to widespread concerns that the current situation leads to uncertainties among police and the public alike. Police have complained that many people they encounter believe marijuana has been legalized, while marijuana users complain that they are still being arrested.

So, when is someone likely to be arrested instead of warned for marijuana possession? According to the ACPO, an arrest may be warranted when:

• The name and/or address of the suspect are not known or there are reasonable grounds for doubting whether a name given is a real name.
• It is necessary to prevent the offender suffering physical injury or causing injury to someone else.
• If a locality has been identified through the National Intelligence Model as one where there is fear of public disorder associated with the use of cannabis which cannot be effectively dealt with by other means, such as where an open drugs (cannabis) market causes harm to communities.
• It is necessary to protect a child or vulnerable person from the offender.
• It is necessary to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offense.

A report issued this week by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Institute for Criminal Justice Policy Research, "Policing Cannabis as a Class C Drug" , suggests that much of the uncertainty and inconsistency lies with the police themselves. According to that report, in four police areas studied, police arrested marijuana possessors or smokers between 78% and 58% of the time. The decision to arrest or not depended on a variety of factors, including the attitude of the officer, the attitude of the offender, local policies, and the amount of marijuana seized.

"When cannabis was reclassified as a Class C drug, guidelines were issued advising officers to give street warnings for most possession offences, arresting only in aggravating circumstances," the report noted. "We found that street warnings were issued for under half of possession offences. Over half of officers were against the downgrading and many said that cannabis arrests often led to the detection of more serious crimes. In fact, we found that this occurred in less than one percent of cases."

Almost half of police officers complained of the unfairness of having to arrest teenagers -- a policy that has now changed. One police officer interviewed for the study said: "It just seems a bit unfair for a 16-year-old to get nicked for it and an 18-year-old in the same group to get a slap on the wrist and that's it."

The study also found that police seemed to encounter marijuana offenders more often among members of Britain's ethnic minorities. "People from black and minority ethnic groups were heavily over-represented amongst offenders in three of the sites and somewhat over-represented in the remaining site," the study reported. "Whilst the study cannot disentangle the factors that might explain this over-representation, it clearly highlights the need for police forces to monitor trends closely in the disposal of possession offences."

Standing at a rally in front of the home where Atlanta senior citizen Kathryn Johnston was shot and killed by police serving a "no-knock" drug warrant after she opened fire on the intruders, the Rev. Al Sharpton on Sunday called for congressional hearings into the police killing of civilians. The case of Johnston, who was killed November 21, along with that of Sean Bell, the New York City man gunned down by police on his wedding date a few days later, and the case of Patrick Strickland, the North Carolina man killed by police investigating the robbery of a Playstation3, have once again put the simmering issue of police violence on the front burner.

"Something stinks in this case. And something stinks to high heaven," Sharpton said. "In fact, it smells so bad, I smelled it in New York and came to Atlanta this morning." Sharpton condemned "this new sense of police recklessness, whether it is a 88-year-old mother here in Atlanta, with questionable circumstances that led to the warrant that gave them entry into her home, or whether it is over 50 bullets shot at three unarmed men in Queens," said the prominent black activist and former presidential candidate.

"There seems to be a new spirit in law enforcement that they can become the judge, jury and executioner of the law on the scene," Sharpton said. "Police apprehend suspects; they don't kill them. This cannot be tolerated in a civilized society."

While the Justice Department is conducting investigations of both the Johnston and Bell killings, Sharpton said they were only the latest in a pattern of killings and individualized inquiries were not enough. "The pattern is not under investigation," Sharpton said. "They are investigating whether there was criminal activity. The pattern of policing, which should be set by the US Congress in a federal standard, is not going to come out of either one of those investigations."

Sharpton said he had been talking with US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the incoming head of the House Judiciary Committee about holding hearings on what he called a national pattern of police shootings. He isn't the first to ask Conyers to act on the issue. Outgoing US Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) sent Conyers a letter last week asking him to hold hearings.

According to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, police kill between 300 and 400 people each year. After peaking at nearly 450 police killings of civilians in 1994, the number declined to just over 300 in 2000 before climbing again to about 370 last year. Only a tiny fraction of police killings are found by police to be questionable; most are found to be "justifiable homicides." In only a tiny fraction of cases are officers indicted in a killing, and then, only a tiny fraction are convicted.

Despite seven years of reforms aimed at eradicating racial profiling by the New Jersey State Police, the practice continues unabated and has even gotten worse. That's according to an American Civil Liberties Union study that found 30% of drivers stopped on the southern portion of the New Jersey Turnpike were black while African-Americans comprised only 18% of the population.

New Jersey Turnpike entrance

The state agreed to a consent decree aimed at reforming State Police practices following the shooting of three unarmed young people of color on the Turnpike in 1998. In recent years, court-appointed monitors have found the agency is complying with the decree, and the federal government has offered to lift it.

But State Police continue to stop black drivers at "greatly disproportionate" rates on the southern part of the turnpike, ACLU legal director Edward Barocas told the committee. "Profiling continues unabated," Barocas testified. "African-Americans now make up a higher percentage of stops than they did before the consent decree began."

State Police spokesmen said they were aware that black drivers were being stopped disproportionately, but claimed it did not result from racial profiling. "We've been assured by the independent monitoring team that they have seen no indication of troopers performing unconstitutional actions or any sign of disparate treatment," said Lt. Col. Tom Gilbert.

While Gilbert played defense, State Troopers Fraternal Association president David Jones went on the attack. The ACLU study, in which an outside consultant measured the number of black, brown, and white drivers on the southern Turnpike and compared it with the number of traffic stops, was "junk science" designed to protect the "cottage industry" of defense lawyers who sue the State Police, he claimed. "Everybody there (at the Moorestown Station) from the very top on down has been changed a multitude of times," Jones said, explaining about transfers. "The anomaly exists because sometimes a violator is a violator."

State Police head Rick Fuentes wants to replace the court-appointed monitors with an academic panel, but racial profiling expert Professor Samuel Walker of the University of Nebraska-Omaha said stronger monitoring was needed. "External, independent oversight -- a different set of eyes and ears -- is extremely important for maintaining professional standards," said Walker. "You've got reforms in place. The real important issue is maintaining them... and it requires continuous attention."

The committee will decide on a recommendation to the governor, but there is no word yet on when that will happen.

Click here to view large portions of the historic 91,000 page New Jersey Racial Profiling Archive, released by the state attorney general's office in November 2000 and made available on the Internet by DRCNet.