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05/14/2008: "Beach disputes study on racial bias in arrests"

The most obvious flaw in the study, police said, is that all the figures are derived using the city's 1990 U.S. census racial breakdown of 10 percent black and about 86 percent white. By the 2000 census, Virginia Beach was 19 percent black and about 71 percent white. The black population in 2006 was estimated at about 20 percent of the total.

"If I’d turned a paper in grad school using data that was 18 years old, my professors would have said it was an invalid study," Cervera said. "The African American population has increased tremendously."

King acknowledged that not accounting for the increasing black population in Virginia Beach skewed the study toward showing that a higher percentage of blacks were arrested for drugs.

He said the main point of the study remained valid: Blacks still are being arrested more frequently on drug charges. "There are no studies of use, abuse or selling dynamics," he said, "that support the scope of disparity we see."

[ No one is suggesting that those arrested are innocent. ]

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/05/beach-disputes-study-racial-bias-arrests