"Although no amount of policy analysis can resolve disagreements about how much punishment drug offenses deserve, research does make clear that some strategies for reducing drug use and crime are more effective than others and that imprisonment ranks near the bottom of that list. And surveys have found strong public support for changing how states and the federal government respond to drug crimes.

"One primary reason for sentencing an offender to prison is deterrence—conveying the message that losing one’s freedom is not worth whatever one gains from committing a crime. If imprisonment were an effective deterrent to drug use and crime, then, all other things being equal, the extent to which a state sends drug offenders to prison should be correlated with certain drug-related problems in that state. The theory of deterrence would suggest, for instance, that states with higher rates of drug imprisonment would experience lower rates of drug use among their residents.

"During 2012-15, U.S. residents experienced 5.8 million violent victimizations per year (table 1). About 3.7 million of these violent victimizations were committed against white victims.³ Among white victims, a higher percentage of victimizations were committed by white offenders (57%) than offenders of any other race. White victims perceived the offender to be black in 15% of violent victimizations and Hispanic in 11%.⁴

(911 Calls, Good Samaritan Laws, And Opiate Overdoses) "Among heroin users, research indicates fear of police response as the most common barrier to not calling 911 during overdoses.^12,13 In a Baltimore study, 37 % of injection drug users who did not call 911 during an overdose endorsed concerns about police as the most important reason they did not call.¹³ Several states have enacted laws, commonly called Good Samaritan laws, to encourage calling 911 during overdoses on controlled substances; these laws are in part modeled on college campus alco

(Impact Of Good Samaritan Laws On Arrests) "Ninety-three percent of police respondents had attended a serious opioid overdose (defined in the survey) in their career, with 64 % having attended one in the past year. While 77 % of officers felt it was important they were at the scene of an overdose to protect medical personnel, a minority, 34 %, indicated it was important they were present for the purpose of enforcing laws. Arrest during the last overdose officers encountered was rare, with only 1 % of overdose victims and 1 % of bystanders being arrested.

(Impact of Arrests Rates on Injection Drug Use) "Although hard drug arrest rates were not associated with changes in the IDU rate, imprisonment might be.

(Arrests for Hard Drugs Have No Impact On Injection Drug Use Rates) "Changes in hard drug arrest rates did not predict changes in IDU population rates. These results are inconsistent with criminal deterrence theory and raise questions about whether arresting people for hard drug use contributes to public health."

(Police "Stops" in NYC) "As the NYCLU previously disclosed, the NYPD conducted nearly 700,000 stops in 2011. The total of 685,724 stops marked an increase of 84,439 (14 percent) stops from 2010. During the 10 years of the Bloomberg administration, there have been 4,356,927 stops."

Note: A "stop" is defined as "the practice of police officers stopping individuals on the street to question them."

(Police "Frisks" Defined) "A pat-down frisk is a limited search subject to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. It involves a police officer patting down an individual’s outer clothing, and only his outer clothing, if and only if, pursuant to a lawful forcible stop, the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the individual stopped is armed and dangerous. This is the only legal justification for a pat-down frisk.

(Police "Stops" Defined) "'Stops' refers to the practice of police officers stopping individuals on the street to question them. In general, police may do this to anyone at any time. But unless and until the police officer tells an individual he or she may not leave, a person stopped is free not to answer questions and to leave. As Supreme Court Justice Harlan said in his opinion in Terry [v.