A total 12,408,899 people were arrested last year — with one marijuana-related arrest every 42 seconds, according to analysis of FBI statistics released last week.
The No. 1 arrest charge in the U.S. was drug abuse violations. More than 81 percent of the 1,531,251 arrests stemmed from possession, while the remainder were for sales and manufacturing.
Marijuana possession made up 660,000 arrests, or or 43.3 percent of all arrests under the drug abuse violations category.
Counting all drugs, not just marijuana, police made one drug arrest every 21 seconds, according to analysis from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. LEAP is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit group comprised mostly of law enforcement, judges and prosecutors.
“Even excluding the costs involved for later trying and then imprisoning these people, taxpayers are spending between $1.5 – to $3 billion just on the police and court time involved in making these arrests,” said LEAP executive director Neill Franklin, a retired Baltimore narcotics officer.
Overall, the number of total arrests and the number of drug abuse arrests continues to drop annually. The top three arrest charges remained the same, though larceny-theft moved ahead of DUI arrests in 2011:
- Drug abuse violations: 1,531,251 arrests in 2011 (a 6.6 percent drop from 2010)
- Larceny-theft: 1,264,986 arrests (a 0.5 percent increase)
- Driving under the influence: 1,215,077 arrests (a 14 percent decrease)
See the 2011 nationwide arrest data here. See the data broken down by state here. See more analysis of the data from the FBI here.