The Cincinnati City Council has just renewed a draconian ordinance that sends people to jail for a month for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The city ordinance was set to expire but local cops pleaded to have it extended. The law allowed them to arrest more people, and they didn’t want to lose that power.

In the rest of Ohio, marijuana possession is punishable by a $100 fine and no jail.

After reading some background information, some citizens challenged police claims that crime rates had fallen since the ordinance was passed.  The citizens argued that, in fact, the opposite was true and they demanded to see crime reports from the disputed time period.    They were told that this is not public information.

The following letter was published in response:

At the Tuesday Law and Public Safety Committee meeting the police reported
on how much crime had been reduced in Cincinnati, credit for which they said
belonged to the enhanced penalties of the year-old marijuana ordinance.
Their facts and conclusion were challenged by several speakers, but in the
end the committee members (except Tarbell) used this report as a basis for
rushing the extension of the ordinance to the meeting of full council.
After the meeting I asked the clerk’s office for a copy of their report and
was told it was not available.

And I have a problem with that.  The committee based its vote, at least in
part, on a report that is not immediately available to the public.  The
clerk’s office said that I could go to the basement CityCable office and
they would make a copy on DVD of their recording of the police
presentation.  They said there should be a video recording of the screen
onto which their report was projected.  They also said that it is the common
practice for the police, when they do such a report, to bring in their
CD-ROM to make the presentation and leave with it, without giving the clerk
a copy.  So I guess I could also go to the police directly and ask for a
copy.

But why should it be so complicated?  It should be routine for such reports
to be included on-line.  I and others struggled to figure out the basis for
what the police were saying—that crime went down in the city.  I will give a
brief review of that below.  After I started writing this a friend of mine
came in with a video copy that someone had taped off of cable.

The police said Part 1 Crimes went down since the enhanced penalties went
into effect.  Part 1 crimes, per the Cincinnanti Police website,* include
murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and auto
theft.  Comparing 2005 with 2006 we see that in 2006 murders, robberies, and
burglaries went up.  Rapes, aggravated assaults, larcenies, and auto thefts
went down..

The police website also reports that in 2005 there were 291,468 calls for
service.  In 2006 there were 313,129 calls for service, a 7% increase.  (By
the way, assuming no overtime this works out to about 1.2 calls for service
per officer per day.)

The police also reported verbally, while giving their report, that the
fines levied against the offenders outweighed the city’s costs of
prosecuting them by almost 5 to 1.  This, too, was used as a justification
for making the increased penalties permanent

So it comes down to money and categories and which categories should count
in determining the effect of the increased penalties for marijuana
possession.  These should be items for serious discussion.  But instead the
Law & Public Safety Committee (except Tarbell) rushed to approve a permanent
extension of the increased penalties based on a report that disappeared with
the police.

Michael Earl Patton