WASHINGTON POST Op Ed: In a little office on the third floor of Metropolitan Police Headquarters on Indiana Avenue NW is a small window to the future — open to some, closed to many. This is where you get your D.C. “police clearance.”
If you have never been there, that’s because you have never applied for a job flipping burgers, mowing lawns or cleaning restrooms in the District. Room 3033 is the human resources department for the poor, the young and the disenfranchised. The piece of paper you get there — if you have no criminal record — is what you need to land a job. Without it, you’re out of luck…
To put that into perspective, there are twice as many marijuana arrests in the District as there are students graduating from D.C. high schools each year…
And though marijuana usage rates for blacks and whites are about the same, more than 90 percent of those arrested on pot charges in the District are black. Most of them are young men. By the time their cases are over, months or sometimes years later, they have gone from the unemployed to the long-term unemployed… (more)
