Fayetteville Must Do Better, Especially Our Prosecutors
Click below to read the sequel to the first Myth of Progress Report
The first report lowered marijuana arrests by 66% and decreased the racial disparity of arrests. Click on the image above or the link here to read the report, released on 11/19/2020.
The raw data from the Fayetteville Police Department and the Fayetteville District Court is available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11nfZbklyCnbWxu51GcBo0vbAqbG81Sqk?usp=sharing
Amid all of the conversation around redirecting community resources toward community solutions that are not strictly police departments, the Fayetteville School District is considering adding two new police officers into the schools. This is concerning, however, as the data reflect that these so-called “resource” officers have disproportionately jailed Black and Brown students since 2015. Click below to see some concise charts as well as the hard data provided by the Fayetteville Police Department:
- A Concise Chart broken down by year
- A Concise Chart reflecting the past 5 years
- All arrest data for Fayetteville High School since 2015
- All arrest data for the Fayetteville ALLPS School since 2015
- All arrest data for Woodland Junior High since 2015
- All arrest data for Ramay Junior High since 2015
Click Below to read the first Myth of Progress Report
Read the report 'A Myth of Progress' here . Alternatively, listen to an audio version here .
The City of Fayetteville continues to arrest hundreds of people for marijuana use despite the 2008 Low Prioritization law. Our community has offered 4 solutions to this violence. They are:
1. Immediate end to misdemeanor marijuana arrests.
2. Immediate implementation of a Citizens Review Board to ensure fair policing and prosecution in Fayetteville.
3. Immediate end to funding of and participation in the Drug Task Force, and instead funding opportunities for disadvantaged young people, like resources for the ALLPS school.
4. Immediate implementation of a prosecutorial policy to drop the charges of anyone simply possessing marijuana.
DEMAND ACTION NOW
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Daniel's Case: State Violence Perpetuates Cycles of Poverty
Community Meeting
Speak your mind, join community, and hear from city officials on bringing justice to this issue.
Thursday, July 11th, 2019
6:30 PM
Two days before the 2019 report's release, city attorney Kit Williams claimed he could do nothing differently in regards to marijuana prosecutions until state law changed. Within hours of the press conference, he said that a city ordinance had to change before he could drop charges. Neither of these messages from Kit's memos was true; a prosecutor has discretion to drop charges; it happens every week in every prosecutor's office in the state. You can read his second memo here . This memo was mostly a deflection of responsibility, as no law needed to change for his prosecutors to simply drop possession charges or institute a program that did not require any monetary deprivation.
Fayetteville Marijuana Arrests,
2008 & 2018
A link to the raw data of the 2008 & 2018 arrests is available here .
AJC Report, “A Myth of Progress” Click on the image above or the link here to read the report, released on 11/19/2020.
Arkansas Justice Collective's thorough report on the City's ongoing violence against marijuana users, especially young Black people, is available here .