Reducing Drug Arrests and Convictions: Strategies to Shift Law Enforcement Funds, Practices and Priorities

Year

2011 - Los Angeles, CA

Speakers

Moderator: Jasmine L. Tyler, Deputy Director, National Affairs, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, DC
Mark Cooke, Policy Advocate, ACLU of Washington, Seattle, WA
Nsombi Lambright, Executive Director, ACLU of Mississippi, Jackson, MS
Harry Levine, Sociology Professor, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY
Kris Nyrop, Racial Disparity Project, The Defender Association, Seattle, WA
Amanda Petteruti, Associate Director, Justice Policy Institute, Washington, DC
Alex Stevens, Professor, Criminal Justice, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, U.K.

At the federal, state and local level, reformers are finding innovative ways to prevent drug arrests and convictions. These include diverting federal drug funding from enforcement to treatment, reforming policies around the use of confidential informants, reducing racial disparities in arrests, and giving law enforcement officers options other than arrest for drug use or possession. How are they doing this?