A damning report in Australia has found stark racial and socioeconomic disparities in how police exercise their discretion when catching people with illicit drugs. According to The Age, individuals caught with drugs at music festivals — who tend to be wealthier and whiter — were far more likely to be diverted away from the court system than others caught with similar substances in different contexts.
The findings raise uncomfortable questions about the fairness of police discretion programs that were ostensibly designed to reduce the burden on courts and give first-time offenders a second chance. If those programs disproportionately benefit the already privileged, critics argue, they may be deepening rather than closing the justice gap.
