Elijah also said that it is easier for police to apprehend lower-class offenders.
“Affluent people get high inside,” she said. “Poor people get high outside.”
Different groups are also characterized by different crime patterns, according to Schlanger.
For example, she said that possession of crack cocaine is treated as a more serious offense than powder cocaine, which tends to hurt minorities.
Schlanger also said that some states, including Massachusetts, impose more stringent penalties for dealing drugs near schools—and that such laws affect mostly minorities, since a larger percentage of minorities live in urban areas, and thus near schools, than whites do.
The panel was organized by the American Constitution Society (ACS) and the Black Law Students Association to raise awareness of the circumstances surrounding the disproportionate demographics of American inmates, according to BLSA President Joshua Bloodworth ’97.
“People don’t necessarily understand the size and the scope of the problem,” said Alixandra E. Smith ’02, ACS publicity director.