STUDY: Juvenile Arrests in Oakland Driven By Racial Bias

A new study released Wednesday finds that African-American boys in Oakland, California, are far more likely to be arrested than boys of other races. They are also more likely to be arrested for minor offenses like gambling and drunkenness.

According to the study, conducted by the Black Organizing Project in conjunction with the ACLU, black boys comprised of 73.5 percent of all juvenile arrests by the Oakland Police Department between 2006 and 2012, even though they only make up 29.3 percent of the city’s youth population. Nearly 80 percent of these young African Americans were not prosecuted.

As Jacquelyn Byers, director of the Black Organizing Project, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “we’ve heard stories about racial profiling — when you see the actual data, it’s hard to believe this is actually happening.”

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