Marijuana Offenses: 2013-2016 (Durham Police Department)
| Multi Request | Marijuana Offenses: 2013-2016 |
| Submitted | Oct. 25, 2017 |
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Communications
From: Narrative Arts
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to North Carolina Public Records Law (G.S. §§ 132-1 through 132-10), I hereby request the following documents:
A copy of all data related to citations/arrests for marijuana possession made by your agency. We are specifically seeking any statistics related to the total number of arrests and/or citations for offenses related to marijuana possession as well as the location of the incident and the ethnicity, age, sex, and other demographic information of the persons arrested and/or cited, if available. The time frame for which we are seeking records is from January 2013 through December 2016.
If it is your position that any portion of the requested records is exempt from disclosure, we request that you provide it with an index of those documents as required under Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C. Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 977 (1972).
If you determine that any portion or portions of this request cannot be fulfilled as promptly as any other portion of this request, we ask that you first fulfill whatever portion of this request you can fulfill within 10 business days and then fulfill the remainder of the request as promptly as possible.
We are happy to work with your office to make this request as simple as possible and eliminate unnecessary work. Please contact us before you incur labor costs or the use of information technology resources beyond those that your agency has already established for reproduction of the information requested. We can probably find an efficient solution that serves the public interest while minimizing your effort.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I would request your response within ten (10) business days.
Sincerely,
Working Narratives
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Public Records Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on Oct. 25, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Durham Police Department
The requested information is attached…
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From: Narrative Arts
Thanks Jason, We additionally requested records related to marijuana citations:
"We are specifically seeking any statistics related to the total number of arrests and/or citations for offenses related to marijuana possession as well as the location of the incident and the ethnicity, age, sex, and other demographic information of the persons arrested and/or cited, if available. The time frame for which we are seeking records is from January 2013 through December 2016."
Please let us know if you can supply citation data and when and how we might review it.
From: Narrative Arts
Also, we'd like the fulfillment of our request to include any arrest/citation records for marijuana offenses involving juveniles and spanning January 2013 through December 2016.
From: Narrative Arts
Jason, This possible? Assuming Durham has this sort of data on hand.
From: Narrative Arts
Hi, Would be great to get some help completing this information request. Though we were sent Adult 2013-16 SCH VI arrests for marijuana ---thanks for that---we were also seeking statistics related to the total number of marijuana citations for that time period, as well as statistics regarding 2013-16 juvenile marijuana arrests/citations. The request is part of a multi-city survey and city's like Wilmington, Chapel Hill, Asheville and High Point were able to provide their data in full. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
From: Durham Police Department
I will respond to this request by the end of the week. Please accept my apology for any delay.
Sent from my iPhone
From: Durham Police Department
Please see the below responses.
On April 4, 2018:
Thanks Jason, We additionally requested records related to marijuana citations:
"We are specifically seeking any statistics related to the total number of arrests and/or citations for offenses related to marijuana possession as well as the location of the incident and the ethnicity, age, sex, and other demographic information of the persons arrested and/or cited, if available. The time frame for which we are seeking records is from January 2013 through December 2016."
Please let us know if you can supply citation data and when and how we might review it.
Our previous reply on 11/20/17 provided data for any service of legal process contained in our Records Management System related to a marijuana offense by an adult (16+), which included some citations. However, officers frequently issue citations for such offenses using the State’s eCitation system, and those records are maintained by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).
However, I did discover when reviewing the information sent on 11/20/17 that one offenses was omitted from the data inadvertently, which was NCGS 90-95(D4) POSSESS MARIJUANA UP TO ½ OZ. Those 318 records have been added to the data, and a new file has been attached.
On April 5, 2018:
Also, we'd like the fulfillment of our request to include any arrest/citation records for marijuana offenses involving juveniles and spanning January 2013 through December 2016.
Unfortunately, pursuant to NCGS 7B-3000, juvenile records are confidential and shall withheld from public inspection except by order of the court.
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From: Narrative Arts
Thanks so much for your thoroughness. Since we're comparing Durham's marijuana data to data sent to us from other cities whose stats included juvenile marijuana offenses, we'd like to request redacted copies of the relevant records. Another option might be to summarize the data by sending along a table detailing the number of juvenile arrests and citations broken down by age, race and ethnicity over the specified period. Again, thanks so much for your work so far.
From: Durham Police Department
In NC, criminal charges against juveniles (<16) are referred to juvenile court via petition, so there is no separation by arrest, citation, etc. All but one of the 21 charges over the 2013-2016 period covered were for misdemeanor possession of marijuana; the other (15 y/o B/M) was for felony distribution of marijuana. Keep in mind that there could have been other accompanying charges besides marijuana. The summarized table below is the best I can provide.
Black
White
Grand Total
Age
Hispanic
Non-Hispanic
10
1
1
11
1
1
13
1
4
5
14
2
2
15
11
1
12
Grand Total
16
4
1
21
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image001
From: Narrative Arts
Jason, This looks helpful, but it looks like we lost some of the formatting. Were the numbers broken down by year? Possible to resend as a PDF?
From: Durham Police Department
A tab has been added to the spreadsheet previously sent for the juvenile data, with the appropriate redactions.
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From: Narrative Arts
Thanks for the update, no juvenile marijuana charges in 2016? Just want o make sure, since that signals an interesting progression.
From: Durham Police Department
No, none.
From: Narrative Arts
Let us know if you have further thoughts or insights. Glad DPD is so on top of its data. Much Appreciated!