Black, Native people face higher rates of charges in Washington courts

The number of Black people with charges filed against them in Washington’s courts last year was about 2.5 times greater than their share of the state’s population – largely due to misdemeanor charges, which are considered less serious crimes.  That’s according to a new online data dashboard released this month by the Washington State Center for Court Research.  The dashboard also shows that the number of Native Americans with charges filed against them in Washington’s courts last year was about two times greater than their share of the state’s population. For Native women, the disparity was even larger, at around three times their share of the population. Latino people, too, are overrepresented in the legal system, at 1.5 times their share of the population.  “It goes without saying that the United States has a long history of discrimination particularly to the Black and Indigenous communities,” said Frank Thomas, an analyst for the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission. “This is an ages-long, generations-long issue of overrepresentation in the criminal legal system.”  Thomas said that historically, the representation of Black Americans in prisons nationwide — going as far back as 1890 —- has been around 3 times their share of the...