The Suburbanization of American Arrests

Every three seconds, someone gets arrested in the United States. Most of these arrests are for low-level drug-related offenses and misdemeanors, and many reflect the persistent racial bias in policing that’s been a focus of so much recent effort to reform the criminal-justice system. The bulk of this vast pool of more than 10 million arrests—78 percent—occur in metropolitan areas. But perhaps surprisingly, within that geography, it’s suburban areas, not urban centers, that have the highest arrest rates.

That’s according to a new report and interactive tool by the Vera Institute of Justice that shows arrest trends by geography and demographic groups since the 1980s. “In terms of policing, there really hasn’t been, as far as we can tell, a whole lot of effort focused geographically at suburban policing and how that impacts enforcement nationally,” said Rebecca Neusteter, the policing program director at the Vera Institute of Justice. “By simply focusing on that city, we’re missing the mark.”