NJ marijuana legalization: Why are NJ cops arresting fewer kids, more boomers?
Originally posted by App.com, a part of the USA Today Network.
App.com, part of the USA Today Network, quotes CJCJ’s Senior Research Fellow Mike Males in an article on crime trends amid major marijuana policy reforms.
From the article:
Arrests began to dip when the economic recession hit in 2007 — Walker’s home department of Paterson lost one third of its officers. With slim resources, peer pressure among officers led to less of a focus on simple, non-dealer marijuana possession arrests, he said.
According to Mike Males, senior researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, teen arrests for pot drop in states where it is legal only for adults. He believes the reason is because police stop focusing on marijuana cases.